


all the times we met

by hedakombikru



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, F/F, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 27,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedakombikru/pseuds/hedakombikru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Kara/Lucy one-shots of varying lengths</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure what I'm doing here but I found a bunch of AU prompts I'd saved and several of them struck me as good Kara/Lucy (SuperLane?) fic ideas. I fell into this pairing and I can't get out.
> 
> Anyway, I'm just going to be dumping one-shots and drabbles here as I go, choosing prompts from my list at random, so if you want to send me more (AU or not) in the comments here or to my unused side blog (URL is agtdanvers), feel free. I also might have a Kara/Lucy time loop fic in the works if people are interested so maybe stay tuned for that.
> 
> Now, without further ado...

**Prompt: My neighbor’s sibling got the wrong house number and barged into my apartment on accident.**

* * *

 She isn’t quite sure how her Saturday plans went from relaxation, reading, and maybe eating the three pints of ice cream in her freezer to having brunch at a café halfway across town with two virtual strangers. Though Kara can’t say this is the strangest thing that has ever happened to her, so really, she can’t find it in herself to be all that surprised by the turn of events.

And maybe finally getting to talk to her pretty new neighbor, who she has only ever seen twice – although she isn’t sure that the time she was exhausted and accidentally looked through the wall to see the woman dancing around stacks of moving boxes actually counts – is not too awful a consequence of having her plans interrupted. Even if that interruption did come as a bit of a shock.

* * *

Despite her Kryptonian reflexes, Kara is slow to react when the door she had clearly forgotten to lock last night is flung open at 9 a.m. and an unfamiliar brunette traipses through her apartment.

The woman goes on for nearly two minutes, loudly, calling her ‘Lucy’ while simultaneously praising her ability to unpack so quickly and criticizing the “blindingly bright and cheery” décor, before she realizes that Kara, standing in the living room with her donut pajamas and bedhead, is not, in fact, Lucy. Kara, meanwhile, simply stands there gaping like a fish in her bewilderment. (She decides, for her own sake, never to tell Alex about this incident for fear of a reprimand over her inaction in the face of a veritable home invasion.)

After the obligatory “You’re not Lucy” and Kara’s hesitant affirmation, they stare at each other for a moment, appraising.

“Well shit,” the woman says. “Is this 706?”

Kara nods. She watches the woman pull a scrap of paper from the purse hanging over her shoulder and squint at whatever is written on it. Even Kara’s superior vision can’t help her decipher the chicken scratch she figures is meant to be an address.

She hears the woman mutter something about ‘5’ and ‘6’ looking far too similar, but the exact words are muffled by the sound of a door opening nearby and footsteps padding towards her apartment. Kara glances past the stranger’s shoulder to see her neighbor appear in the doorway, and realizes suddenly that it might have been helpful of her to mention earlier that a Lucy has just moved in next door.

“Lois! I thought that was your raucous criticism I heard echoing in the hallway.”

Kara’s visitor – Lois, apparently – grins at the dry tone and whirls around to face Lucy.

“Hey, sis!”

Kara watches them embrace for moment, still not entirely sure what is happening to her Saturday morning.

“Are you done terrorizing my neighbor?” Lucy asks, pulling out of the hug and turning an apologetic smile on Kara. “I’m so sorry. My sister lacks boundaries and any sense of self-control.”

Lois gasps in mock-offense as Kara grins and waves off the apology. “It’s okay. A critique on my decorative choices is actually not the strangest thing I’ve heard from someone barging into my apartment.”

“Interesting,” Lois remarks. “Care to elaborate?”

Lucy rolls her eyes and shoves her sister out the door. “Still, sorry about the inconvenience,” she says. “I’m Lucy Lane, by the way. Your new neighbor.” She takes a step forward, holding out a hand, and Kara takes it carefully, aware that her handshakes tend to land on the wrong side of too tight more often than not.

Kara pauses awkwardly when she remembers that she’d only learned Lucy’s name because of that accidental peek through the wall and therefore the words “I know” should definitely not have been the first words about to spill out of her mouth. She bites her tongue to avoid the blunder, realizes the handshake has reached the point of being inappropriately long, and blurts, “I’m hi.” She registers how that sounds as Lucy’s eyes widen and feels her cheeks flush as she quickly shakes her head. “No! I mean– Hi. I’m Kara. Danvers,” she finally stutters out.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kara,” Lucy chuckles, clearly finding more amusement in the situation than Kara is at the moment. A pause, then, “So, do you think I could have my hand back?”

Another blush floods Kara’s face and she drops Lucy’s hand like it’s made of kryptonite. “Sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Lucy, still smiling.

A clearing throat at the doorway draws them out of the moment. Kara takes a step back, glancing down, and only feeling more mortified when she realizes that she’s still dressed in her pajamas, probably looking like she has just rolled out of bed. Though to be fair, that is actually the case. She was barely awake when Lois came barging into her apartment.

“Um, so I should probably get dressed now…” Kara looks back up to see Lucy grinning at her and Lois rolling her eyes.

“Kara, would you like to come to brunch with us?”

“Uh,” Kara responds intelligently.

Lucy plows on. “It’s the least we could do, after ruining your morning.”

“You didn’t–”

“Lois’s treat,” she adds, and Kara can’t tell whether the hopeful note she hears in that is merely a figment of her imagination.

Neither of them misses the “Hey!” coming from the doorway, but it goes ignored as Lucy continues to smile charmingly, and Kara takes all of three seconds to ponder the offer before nodding.

“Sure. Thanks, Lucy.” She grins brightly in return, telling herself she’ll have time to regret her eagerness later. “I can be ready in twenty minutes?”

“Great! Just come on over when you’re done,” Lucy tells her, then spins on her heel and leaves with Lois, pulling Kara’s door shut behind her.

Kara blinks slowly and takes a moment to think in the sudden silence. “What just happened?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there's that. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: I'm worried about your coffee dependency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'll probably try to do as many of these as I can before my new quarter starts on Monday and then they'll have to come at a slower rate. Thank you for all of the kudos and wonderful comments on the first one-shot!
> 
> Not sure how I feel about this one. It's another AU. But I think the next one will be non-AU.

Lucy snaps a lid onto another to-go cup of overpriced coffee and slides it across the counter.

“Eight-ounce mocha for Jack.”

The man in an ill-fitting suit who sidles up to take his coffee isn’t a regular. If nothing else, she would surely recognize the sleazy wink he gives her from any previous interactions. His parting “Thanks, sweetheart” makes her ever more hopeful that he never returns, her glare following him until he disappears amongst the crowd of caffeine-starved customers on his way out the door.

“Careful,” a voice behind her teases. “You might burn a hole in his head.”

“If only.” Lucy can’t help the grin that instantly replaces her sour expression as she turns around.

If it were possible for a human being to absorb sunlight, Lucy is positive that Kara Danvers would be the one to do it. Her favorite regular practically radiates brightness and warmth, and doesn’t even seem to be aware of the effect she has on people. Namely Lucy, who holds up a finger and sets to work preparing Kara’s usual, despite knowing there are probably several people ahead of her in line whose orders she should be filling first. They can wait two minutes.

When she hands over the latte, Kara smiles bashfully and takes it with both hands. “You have to stop doing that,” she chides lightly. The delighted little twist she does on her barstool when she spots the extra cinnamon Lucy sprinkled over the foam kind of undercuts the warning, though.

“Doing what?” Lucy asks, all innocence as she gathers the handful of order slips one of her coworkers is impatiently waving in her face.

“Making my coffee before everyone else’s. You’re going to get in trouble.” She punctuates the statement by taking a large gulp from her steaming mug and humming in satisfaction.

Lucy winces at the sight as she scoops the beans for someone’s order. She has no idea how Kara hasn’t scalded her mouth beyond repair yet, with her impatience when it comes to letting her coffee cool. Can tongues build up calluses?

“Well, you’re a regular,” she tells her. “Special treatment.”

Kara chuckles, taking another gulp. “So were half the people in line before me.”

“Okay, fine. Maybe I just like to enable your caffeine addiction.”

Kara’s eyes crinkle with a smile as she somehow manages to shake her head and sip at her coffee simultaneously.

“It’s true,” Lucy says. She slides two cappuccinos across the pickup counter and calls out the order, then turns back to Kara as she starts on the next one. “I’m a little concerned, actually. You drink at least two of these sugar-laden drinks every morning while you sit here and then you take another two to go when you leave for work. Are any of your teeth cavity free at this point?” she teases. “Does anything but caffeine run in your veins?”

Laughing, Kara replies, “My teeth are fine, thanks. And you know one of those to-go cups is for my boss.”

“Or so you say.”

They’re quiet for several minutes as Lucy fills more orders and Kara drains her mug. Lucy takes it from her to refill and then leans against the counter to watch Kara feign the patience to let it cool again for all of ten seconds before she lifts it to her mouth. The habit is more endearing than she thinks it ought to be.

“That’s it.”

Kara stops mid-sip to blink up at her in surprise.

“I’m worried that you live off of nothing but caffeine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Before she has time to second-guess her next words, Lucy continues, “You should probably let me take you to dinner. To make sure you’ve tasted real food, you know?”

Kara’s answering giggle is encouraging. Lucy grins.

“Okay, Ms. Lane. It’s a date.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Imagine person A and person B being on a phone call and A has to go. They mean to say goodbye but they say I love you, only realizing after they hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a canon(ish) one for you all. Thanks!

“ _Supergirl, we need you back at the warehouse._ ”

“I’m a little busy at the moment, Alex.” Kara spirals out of the way of a flaming projectile launched by their latest alien adversary. It had flown off as soon as it spotted the DEO agents converging on its hideout, and now she is in pursuit of this thing that can apparently shoot fireballs from its... well, Kara isn’t exactly sure at the moment. She dodges another one and flies faster.

“ _Yeah, well, we just found a bomb here. No idea how to disarm it. This alien is crafty._ ”

Kara feels a spike of fear run through her. “How long?”

“ _Five minutes_ ,” she hears, just as she crashes into the alien, knocking them both out of the air.

They only grapple on the ground for a moment before Kara gets the upper hand. With a solid punch, she knocks the alien unconscious and then restrains it against a lamppost using the pole of a No Parking sign, just in case.

She rockets back into the air before tapping her ear to talk to Alex. “I’m on my way. Alien’s down. I left it tied up in the park, but I don’t know for how long, so you should probably get some agents down there fast. What’s the time on the bomb?”

“ _Less than four minutes._ ”

“Have you evacuated?” There’s no immediate response, which is answer enough for Kara. “Alex, get out! I’m almost there.”

Kara flies as fast as she can. In a matter of seconds, she spots the dilapidated warehouse below her and alters her trajectory, hurtling down towards the gaping hole in the roof. She lands as gently as possible, wary of any vibrations triggering the bomb.

Alex is the only agent left inside, hovering over a very large device emitting an ominous, steady beep. Kara rushes forward.

“Alex, go!”

“Three minutes,” Alex tells her, and this time she listens, sprinting out of the building as Kara moves to brace her hands on either side of the bomb.

She cradles it carefully in her arms and shoots back up into the sky, then out over the ocean and high above it before tossing the bomb higher just as the final seconds tick down on the clock. She’s far enough away in enough time that the resulting blast only rocks her a little, and she remains floating above the shore as she watches bits of flaming debris rain down from the clouds in the waning light of the early evening.

“ _Supergirl, everything okay?_ ” It’s Lucy this time, calling from the DEO where she’d remained behind to oversee what was meant to be a simple operation. Despite J’onn’s return and full exoneration, she has maintained directorship of the DEO, J’onn now serving as an occasional advisor and part-time field agent.

“Yeah,” Kara says. “All good.” She can hear Alex and her team on speaker via Lucy’s comm link, reporting their successful apprehension of the alien she’d left in the park. “Anything else you need me to do out here?”

“Nope. Just get back here and debrief,” Lucy replies. “Agent Danvers’ team is on their way back with the prisoner and I’ve got another team handling damage control.”

Kara waves away some wayward ash and points herself toward the DEO. “Okay, see you soon. Love you,” she says, and switches off her comm.

It’s not until she's already gliding through the clouds that Kara registers her last words, and she pulls to a halt so quickly she nearly careens into a passing flock of birds. She smacks a hand to her forehead as the ‘Love you’ echoes in her mind, eyes widening in horrified embarrassment at the thought of returning to the DEO after that. She had been on comms, over speaker. People had definitely heard it.  _Lucy_  had definitely heard it.

“Oh, Rao,” Kara groans, reluctantly resuming her flight back to base, at a much slower pace. She ponders the consequences of never showing her face in National City again, maybe moving to live in the Fortress of Solitude buried beneath a mountain of snow where no one can see her burning, vibrant blush. Kara groans again.

Even slowing her flight can’t delay her forever, though, and soon she’s touching down in front of the DEO’s main doors and heading inside, pointedly avoiding eye contact with anyone she passes on her way to the command center. Halfway there, she resolves to pretend that it just didn’t happen, hopeful that everybody else will do the same.

Except, by the way the low chatter instantly silences when Kara steps into the room, she has a feeling she isn’t going to be that lucky. Looking up, she sees Lucy standing there beside the table, hands clasped behind her back, eyes focused directly on Kara. The glint of amusement in them makes Kara’s heart thud nervously in her chest, and she gulps loud enough that even non-Kryptonian ears can probably hear it.

“Hey,” she greets, aiming for casual.

She fails miserably.

“Supergirl.” Lucy takes a few steps forward, the humored look on her face seeming to brighten with every inch she moves closer.

Kara tugs awkwardly at her cape. “So, um, that debrief?” she tries.

A wicked grin stretches Lucy’s lips. “Sure. I’d  _love_  to get that taken care of.”

Kara feels her cheeks flame, and is suddenly incredibly grateful for the relatively dim lighting of the command center. Maybe she can get J’onn to wipe everyone’s memories of this situation. Most especially her own.

Lucy steps forward again, and Vasquez chuckles quietly at the choked noise Kara makes. Even J’onn has a glint in his eye. Traitors.

When Lucy speaks this time, it’s quiet, meant only for Kara’s ears. The expression on her face is nothing short of mischievous.

“Good work out there, babe.” And then she actually _winks_.

Kara gulps again for an entirely different reason.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: My cat sneaked out on the balcony and into your open window and he has this habit of destroying things so I followed him inside and you came home earlier than I expected and found me in the middle of your living room and honestly I’m not a burglar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another AU one for you. Thanks again for all the kudos and comments! I'm glad people are enjoying these.

“Oh, no. No, no, no!”

Kara can’t believe she had left her balcony door open  _again_. She’d sworn she would stop doing that. A voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Alex laughs an ‘I told you so’ as Kara uses her X-ray vision to scan the apartment.

Living on the top floor means a robbery via her balcony is unlikely, but the cat she’d adopted three months ago has no qualms about trying to escape, which worries Kara more than potential home invasion.

Her quick perusal reveals no sign of the orange tabby cat, but she does find that he’d mutilated yet another of her couch pillows before making his great escape. Kara sighs.

Ignoring the mess for the time being, she takes another look around the apartment, this time calling out for the cat in hopes that he might have magically learned some obedience in the nine hours she was at work.

“Streaky! Here, kitty!”

Nothing. Of course.

She tries opening a can of soft cat food – his favorite – but seeing as there is no sign of him in her apartment, it’s about as futile as calling out his name. Kara sets the food aside, walking to her living room, past the explosion of pillow stuffing, and out onto her balcony. She peers out over the railing, relieved to see nothing but dumpsters and a dismantled bicycle.

Except now she has no idea where her cat might have gone, because the last time she checked, cats on this planet could not fly. Unless...?

The sound of shattering glass next door startles Kara out of her musings, which, now that she looks over and gauges the proximity of her neighbor’s balcony, she realizes were fairly ridiculous. It is a bit of a leap, and she has no idea how Streaky would have managed to get up on the narrow railing in the first place, but–

Hearing another crash, Kara decides to ponder the feat later. Right now, she has to stop her cat from destroying the neighbor’s apartment.

She glances around carefully, ensuring no one is watching, and then flies up and over to the next balcony. Her neighbor must have left her door open as well, Kara thinks as she slips inside. She has never heard the woman come home before six on weekdays, so she figures she has a good forty-five minutes to collect her miscreant cat and fix whatever he’d vandalized.

Which– “Rao,” Kara murmurs, wide eyes scanning over the unfamiliar apartment. Unless her neighbor's idea of home décor is making a mosaic of broken glass on the kitchen floor, her cat has already done a number on the place.

And still is. Kara super speeds forward just in time to catch the glass of water he bats off the counter.

“Streaky, no!” she scolds, replacing the cup. He gives an indignant meow when she lifts him off the counter, glass crunching under her feet with every step. “You’re done, mister. I’m taking you back to our apartment.”

She’s so caught up in berating the cat, she doesn’t hear the door opening until it’s too late to do anything but stand there frozen in shock like a burglar caught in the act. Oh crap.

“Who the hell are you?”

Kara’s first thought is that her neighbor is gorgeous and wow, how has she never actually seen this woman before in the year or so they’ve been living next to each other? And then she thinks about how inappropriate those thoughts are in this situation and dang it, Kara, get a grip. Say something.

“I’m not a robber!”

Right. That’s probably what they all say.

The woman only raises a brow, compelling Kara to ramble on.

“I’m sorry for breaking in. It’s just that I left my balcony open this morning and my cat escaped and I think you must have left your door open, too, so he got in here. And the thing is, he really likes destroying stuff so I had to come get him before... well,” she glances at the mess on the floor and then back up, sheepish, “I’m really sorry. I promise I’ll pay for whatever he broke.”

Streaky squirms in her arms, probably desperate to break the glass she hadn’t let him get to. Kara holds him tighter.

For a long moment, neither of them speaks. Kara waits, expecting her to yell, maybe call the police. Honestly, her story sounds ridiculous even to her own ears.

She does not expect laughter.

Kara shifts nervously, caught off guard by the response, and the surprise must show on her face, because the woman stops after a few seconds, adopting an amused grin instead.

“Sorry,” she says. “It’s just not every day a woman breaks into your apartment to try and save it from a vandalizing cat.”

Kara flushes and stares down at Streaky’s deceptively guileless face. “Yeah. I realize how that sounds.”

“So did you just jump from your balcony to mine?”

Kara shrugs. “Maybe?”

“Impressive,” the woman teases. She sets her bag down on a table and shuts her front door. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Lucy Lane.”

“Oh.” Kara laughs awkwardly. “I’m Kara. Danvers.” She tries to reach up and adjust her glasses out of habit, until she remembers the troublesome cat in her arms. “Um. I’m just going to take him back to my apartment. Then I’ll come back and…” She nods toward the hazard that is Lucy’s kitchen floor. “Sorry. I’ll clean that up.”

Kara turns, heading to the balcony.

Lucy calls after her. “Uh, Kara?”

“Yeah?”

Lucy waits until she stops and looks back. She’s still sporting that amused smile when she asks, “Would you like to use the front door this time? It might be easier than leaping between balconies.”

Kara is convinced at this point that she has never made a bigger fool of herself. And she’d made a lot of social blunders when she first came to Earth. “Right! Of course,” she laughs, embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “I’ll just…”

Lucy smirks, opening the door again to let her out.

“I’ll be right back,” Kara declares, and hurries to her apartment to deposit Streaky on the counter beside the can of food and close her balcony door, locking it for good measure.

When she returns, Lucy has left the door open for her and is already sweeping up the glass shards in her kitchen.

“Oh! I can do that.” She’s feeling guilty enough without watching this woman she had only just met cleaning up a mess that was essentially her fault. “I really am sorry about this,” she apologizes again.

Lucy just waves her off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been meaning to invest in some new bowls anyway,” she jokes.

Kara groans. “Well, at least let me buy you dinner? I mean, I’d offer to cook, but I think that might only be adding insult to injury at this point. And I really want to make this up to you somehow,” she says, grabbing the dustpan and holding it for Lucy to sweep the glass into.

“How about I cook? I was planning on making lasagna tonight anyway.”

Kara dumps the glass in the trash, frowning. “How does that help me apologize?”

“It’s always nice to have company.” Lucy shrugs.

“But…” Kara sets the dustpan down and leans a hip against the counter. “You’re being so nice about this. I’m a stranger who basically broke into your home and destroyed your stuff.”

“Technically, your cat did that.”

Kara concedes with a chuckle. “Still.”

“Okay,” Lucy says, setting aside the broom. “You can make it up to me this weekend. Dinner.”

“And bowl shopping?” Kara asks.

“Sure,” Lucy laughs, “And bowl shopping.”

“Great!” Kara beams, and pretends not to notice that Lucy’s heart rate has increased ever so slightly.

She moves to leave, but Lucy’s hand on her forearm makes her pause.

“I am still making lasagna, though. You interested?”

“I’d love some.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Something like whenever your soulmate sings a duet you can’t help but join in and my fucking soulmate is in a goddamn band but I can’t sing for shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of the soulmate concept I’m gonna say Kara doesn’t have any powers/isn’t an alien in this universe.
> 
> This one is just silly and weird, more crack than a serious one-shot, but I wanted to give it a go because why not. And it ended up being (relatively) long for some reason, so... Yeah. I don't know when I'll have time to write again after today but from now on I'll try to upload at least once a week when I'm not slammed with work and exams. Thanks!
> 
> (also, I didn't read this over so I'm sorry if it sucks)

“Damn it. Not again,” Lucy sighs, feeling it building.

It never happens without warning, she’ll give the universe that. Still, of all the connections it could have bestowed upon her soulmate bond, it just had to be this awful, embarrassing joke of a connection. Some people get the words of their first meeting tattooed on their arm, or see only in greyscale until they meet, or speak a language they’d never been taught.

Lucy gets to sing. Whether she wants to or not.

She isn’t the only one, of course. There are only so many variations on bonds that can exist in a world of seven billion people. But hers  _is_  a rare one. And no one Lucy has commiserated with on this has had it quite as bad as she has.

Because apparently, no matter how regrettable your singing voice, if your soulmate is in a band, you will have to sing  _all the time_.

The singular solace Lucy has is that she only seems compelled to join in when her soulmate is singing a duet.

She wonders what it's going to be this time.

“ _Grease_. Nice,” her friend Rami comments as she suddenly breaks into a rendition of ‘You’re the One That I Want’ in the middle of their law firm’s break room. He continues speaking over her off-key performance, long accustomed to her unfortunate condition. Lucky bastard only has a simple soulmate tattoo on his wrist.

“They don't usually sing at this time of day, do they?” he asks.

Lucy shakes her head, pouring them both some coffee as she calls out “You’re the one that I want! Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey!” over and over again. She turns to stare at Rami with pleading eyes, but he just laughs and takes his mug from her.

“Maybe if you tried to find them, you could politely ask them to tone it down a notch on the duets,” he suggests, still laughing as he makes his way out of the room.

He doesn’t see Lucy flip him off. It makes her feel better anyway.

As she sings out the last “You’re the one that want!” she ponders on Rami’s suggestion. A lot of people actively seek out their soulmates, but Lucy has never been inclined to it.

It isn’t that she doesn’t  _want_  to meet them, but what with working her way through law school and then jumping quickly into her career at the firm after graduation, she hasn’t had a lot of opportunity to be on the lookout. The closest she’s gotten to doing so it checking out every band and karaoke singer in every bar she’s ever happened to visit.

In truth, Lucy can’t actually be sure that her soulmate is in a band, having never met them. But she’s an intelligent woman and all the pieces she has put together over the years of breaking out into song suggest regular practice times interspersed with the givens of car and shower singing sessions, leading her to the conclusion that her soulmate is to some extent involved in a musical group.

Thankfully, said soulmate seems to have only been interested in performing the one song today, because Lucy doesn’t sing any more  _Grease_  for the rest of the afternoon.

As she’s packing up her bag to head home, Rami appears in her office doorway, knocking on the frame to get her attention.

“Hey,” she greets. “What’s up?”

“You’re done for today right?” he asks. She can tell by his tone that he’s leading up to something. Seeing as it’s a Friday, she has a pretty good idea what that is.

"I am. Why?"

His hands come up to clasp beneath his chin in a begging pose she’s proud to say she is entirely immune to. “Come out with us tonight. It has to be way more fun than whatever it is you do at home by yourself.”

“I’m not sure that joining my coworkers in a night of bar hopping is the kind of ‘fun’ I want to be having tonight.”

Rami pouts. “Come on, Luce, please? You never go out with us anymore.”

“That’s not true,” she argues. “What about...” She racks her brain, but no recent outings come to mind. Crap.

She tries for a different tactic. “I was actually planning on driving up to Metropolis tonight to visit my sister.”

“Bull,” Rami replies, hands dropping to his waist. “You never voluntarily visit your sister.”

Damn. She is not doing her best excuse work right now.

The begging hands come up again and Lucy sighs. Okay, so she isn’t  _entirely_  immune to it. “Fine,” she grumbles finally, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll come.”

Rami and her other coworkers, who had apparently been lurking outside her doorway the whole time, let out a victorious cheer.

An hour later, Lucy is dressed in jeans and a shimmery top appropriate for a night out, sitting in a cab on the way to a bar to meet her friends. Everyone is there by the time she arrives, gathered around a table near the darkened stage.

“Hey!” Rami calls over the music blasting from the speakers. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to show.” He passes her a beer, her usual, as she takes a seat.

“Thanks.” She takes a sip. “And I said I would come, didn’t I?” Rami laughs.

The group chats over a dinner of bar burgers and nachos for close to an hour before the music is turned down and a man Rami tells her is the owner steps onto the stage. The purple-tinted spotlights have been turned on, revealing an assortment of musical equipment including a keyboard, drum set, microphones, and a pair of amplifiers. The man steps up to the mic.

“Hey, everyone, thanks choosing to get drunk at Noonan’s tonight.” He pauses to let the hoots and cheers die down. Then, “Without further ado, let’s give a warm welcome to our newest featured band, Super Friends.” The lights dim again as he walks offstage and the band emerges from behind it.

“‘Super Friends’?” Lucy echoes, arching a brow. “That sounds like something a group of third graders would make up.”

“Well they’re definitely not third graders,” one of her coworkers murmurs, eyeing the ensemble setting up onstage.

The drummer is the definition of tall, dark, and handsome, sporting some impressive musculature beneath his tight fitting T-shirt. The guitarist, an attractive brunette dressed in solid black, is speaking lowly with the guy on keyboards who, for some reason Lucy can’t fathom, is wearing a cardigan and tie get-up that contrasts strangely with rest of his band mates’ attire. Another woman she assumes to be the bassist sits up on a stool beside the drums, her dark, cropped hair falling over her forehead as she looks down to fiddle with her instrument. Altogether, they look good. Though that doesn’t really make up for the silly name.

The bar crowd quiets down as the band takes their places onstage, but they don’t start playing yet, seemingly short a vocalist.

She appears a few moments later, navy dress fluttering around her thighs as she jogs over to the microphone. Her smile is bright and cheerful and it makes Lucy smile just to see it.

“What’s with your face?” Rami whispers to her.

Lucy ignores him.

“Hi, everybody!” the vocalist says then, a little breathless. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, which Lucy finds more adorable than she’s willing to admit. “Hope you’re all ready to hear some live music! My name is Kara, and that’s Susan on bass, James on drums, Alex on guitar, and Winn on keyboard. Winn’s going to join me for this first song. A fun musical classic to start off the night.” With that, Kara drops back to center stage, nearer to Winn, and raises the mic back to her mouth.

Which is when Lucy feels it. That all too familiar buildup inside of her, warning of an impending soulmate duet. Oh, no.

When the opening notes to ‘You’re the One That I Want’ start up, she lets out an uncharacteristic squeak of surprise. Rami stares at her, wide-eyed, but Lucy’s not paying attention to his questioning expression.

She can’t believe it. Of all the bars in the city. And yet this cannot be a coincidence.

Winn starts singing first, but she doesn’t feel compelled to join. The warning sensation is still building inside of her, so Lucy’s eyes dart to Kara.

Try as she might, when the woman joins in on the duet, Lucy can’t stop herself from belting out the lyrics as well.

The only way she can think to describe the moment, however cliché and ridiculous it may be, is that it feels like one of those slow motion scenes in a movie. But not the ‘love at first sight’ type, no. More of the ‘horrifying moment where you embarrass yourself in front of everyone’ variety. Their table is close enough to the stage that the band and anyone sitting near her notices her sudden off-key contribution to the performance immediately.

Most of them look at her strangely, unaware of the significance, but Rami adopts a broad grin and Kara… Kara is staring right at her as she sings, and though her voice doesn’t falter, there’s a hint of wonder in her eyes. She must realize it too, Lucy thinks. There is no other explanation, because ‘wonder’ in no way approximates the reaction any hearing person would have to her singing voice. Lucy can’t say she has willfully sung a lot of duets in her life, but she’s done it enough that Kara shouldn’t be unaware of the nature of her soulmate connection.

The song lasts less than three minutes, but it feels as though hours have passed when it finally ends, Lucy never letting her outward composure slip once, in a true herculean effort. She remains fixed to her seat afterwards, watching as Kara moves to speak hurriedly with the guitarist and then hand over her mic. Except then she’s stepping off the stage and heading Lucy’s way and oh god, Lucy was in no way prepared for this soulmate thing to happen tonight, moderately buzzed and in the middle of a bar with all of her friends present, but here it comes anyway. Here _she_ comes.

“Um, hi.”

Lucy looks up into sparkling blue eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “My shower’s broken but I’ve got a date tonight could I possibly use your shower please?” “Oh sure (neighbor that I’ve been crushing on for the past six months) of course you can use my shower to get ready for your date (fuck fuck fuck)”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. Here's one more quick ficlet before I go to sleep.

Kara is halfway through an episode of _Grey's Anatomy_ , diligently consuming a truly impressive amount of pot stickers, when she hears a hard knock at her apartment door. She pauses the show and uses her X-ray vision to look through the door before getting up, and nearly chokes on a pot sticker when she registers the identity of her visitor.

Lucy Lane.

Lucy Lane, her smart, gorgeous neighbor who always smells amazing and always smiles at Kara whenever they pass in the hallway or lobby, and what is Lucy Lane doing knocking at her door at six o’clock on a Friday night?

Kara hurriedly tosses aside her container of food, barely noticing that she uses just a little too much force and ends up splattering her television screen with pot stickers and soy sauce in her rush to throw her glasses on and answer the door.

“Hi, Lucy,” she greets once she gets the door open. She takes a second to be impressed that she doesn’t sound as flustered as she feels, then asks, “Can I help you with something?”

Lucy’s slight frown morphs into a grin at Kara’s question, and Kara pretends her heart doesn’t flutter a bit in response. “Kara, hey! I’m so sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if I could use your shower?” She holds up the fluffy grey bath towel Kara somehow hadn’t noticed until now. “I have a date in an hour and my shower won’t do anything but rattle when I turn it on. It’s a disaster. Normally I could get away without showering, but I went for a run earlier and I really don’t want to go out to dinner smelling like sweat, you know?”

Kara nods absently. Her mind had sort of failed on her somewhere between ‘can I use your shower’ and ‘I have a date,’ and now all she can think about is this woman she’s been secretly crushing on for six months being inside her apartment. Showering. In _her_ shower. So she can go on a date with someone else–

Kara stops herself right there. This is absolutely not the appropriate time for such thoughts. Actually, there is probably never an appropriate time for such thoughts. And she really needs to answer Lucy.

“Yes!” Tone it down, Kara. “Yeah,” she says, nodding her head so quickly that she probably would have given herself whiplash if she were human. “Of course you can use my shower. Come on in.”

“Thank you so much, Kara. You’re a lifesaver,” Lucy declares, and follows the wave of Kara’s hand into the apartment.

Kara remains at the open doorway for a moment, watching Lucy stop in the center of the room and take a look around, before she shuts the door and follows her. When she approaches, she sees Lucy frowning again, her brows furrowed as she stares at something in Kara’s living room.

“Is something wrong?” Kara asks, but she need not have bothered because she tracks Lucy’s sightline directly to the mess of food splattered on her TV. Oops.

Lucy turns to her. “Kara, why are there pot stickers all over your living room?”

Kara smiles, sheepish, and fiddles with her glasses. “Um, well, I guess I accidentally threw my dinner at the TV in my haste to answer the door?” she offers.

“I see,” Lucy chuckles. “And I’m sorry for whatever part I played in that.”

Kara waves off the apology. “Don’t worry about it. Would you like me to show you to the shower?”

“Right, thank you.”

Kara gestures to her open bedroom and leads the way into the en suite bathroom, then leaves Lucy behind to handle the rest, returning to her living room to clean up the remnants of her dinner.

Once she has sorrowfully deposited the ruined pot stickers in the trash, she heads to her freezer and pulls out a fresh pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked, because she is still hungry and there is no way she will be able to handle the sight of Lucy Lane fresh out of the shower without some ice cream in her.

Except that she has eaten about eighty percent of the container by the time Lucy emerges, hair damp and wrapped only in the towel with her balled up clothing clutched in front of her chest, and nope, there is no amount of ice cream on this planet that could ever make this any easier. Kara bites her metal spoon in two.

“Thanks again, Kara,” Lucy says, missing the way Kara quickly spits the broken spoon into her ice cream container as she makes her way to the door. “I totally owe you a dinner for this.” She stops at the door and turns to offer Kara a teasing smile. “Maybe pot stickers?”

Kara, glad she no longer has the spoon in her mouth and thus cannot swallow it, smiles weakly and gives Lucy a nod. “Uh, sure.”

“Great!” Lucy beams, turning back to the door. “See you later!” she calls, and then she’s gone, door shutting softly behind her.

Kara grabs herself another pint of ice cream.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s nowhere near Christmas it’s literally still November would you calm down about Christmas wait no why are you getting the tree out no stop please stop (if you do this pre-relationship you can have the grouchy one secretly finding the other’s excitement endearing and falling in love with them actually that works for established relationship too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had some time in between classes and I thought I'd give this one a go. This one is established relationship and can be read as occurring in the canon-verse. Thanks again for all the kudos and comments! They never fail to make me smile.

The sound of jingling bells rouses Lucy from sleep. Instinctively, she reaches out for Kara, finding only empty space where her girlfriend should be.

With a groan, Lucy rolls to the center of the bed, stretching out her limbs and gazing blankly at the ceiling. She’s still half asleep, wondering if Kara might have gone out for an early-morning Supergirl patrol, when she hears the bells again.

They’re coming from the living room, but that can’t be right because jingling bells are not a sound she should be hearing in her apartment at – Lucy glances at the clock on the bedside table – _seven in the morning_ on her day off. Nope.

Lucy knows for a fact that there is not a single object in their apartment adorned with bells and therefore the only explanation she can think of is…

“Kara!”

She’s out of bed and rushing into the living room fast enough to rival a Kryptonian.

Kara is there, smiling innocently beside the couch, and holding something behind her back. Except that something is a giant cardboard box and Lucy is not fooled in the slightest.

“Good morning!” Kara greets brightly.

“Kara, babe, what are doing?” Lucy asks, rubbing tiredly at her face.

“Umm. Nothing.” Kara’s eyes dart around nervously and she shifts, causing the box to jingle behind her.

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure _that_ ,” she points to the box, “says otherwise.”

Kara blushes, and Lucy tries to ignore her natural inclination to smile at the sight. She’s supposed to be angry, damn it.

“Kara, what’s in the box?”

Kara bites her cheek, then carefully moves to set the box on the couch. When Lucy steps closer, Kara opens the cardboard flaps to reveal an explosion of red, green, and white. And bells. Lots of bells. “They’re Christmas decorations!” she announces cheerfully. “And look!”

Kara points, and Lucy slowly turns to see the thing she’d missed in her rush to the living room. A hefty green Christmas tree – fake, thank god for small mercies – tall enough to scrape the ceiling is leaning against the wall beside their bedroom door.

Lucy’s eyes widen in disbelief. “A tree? Kara, it’s November first. We still have Halloween pumpkins in the kitchen! Christmas is nearly two months away.”

“I know, but I’m just so excited!” Kara counters. “I _love_ Christmas. The decorations, the music. It’s all so beautiful and– and jolly!”

Lucy is really regretting right now just how hard it is to feel any negative emotion when Kara is smiling like that. It’s ridiculous, really. They haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet, and where did she even get those decorations, and that tree – god, that tree – when they have less than zero storage space in this little apartment? Honestly. Lucy doesn’t know how to react to all of this.

(That’s a lie. Kara’s excitement over the impending holiday is wholly adorable and endearing and damn it, Lucy couldn’t be a grouch about this if she tried. She loves this alien idiot too much.)

She watches Kara’s smile dim slightly, her fingers toying idly with one of the silver bells inside the box. “I know I had never even heard of Christmas for the first thirteen years of my life, but… I celebrated it with the Danvers, after I got here. They weren’t religious or anything, but they made it all about family and togetherness, even after we lost Jeremiah, and that was something I really needed when I was adjusting to life on Earth after losing Krypton. Since then, it’s always been a special time of year for me.”

Lucy reaches forward, tugging Kara into a tight embrace and smiling warmly into the curve of Kara’s neck. “I love you,” she murmurs. “And I love how much you care about everything.”

Kara hums, the vibrations resonating through her chest to Lucy’s. “I love you, too.”

Abruptly, Lucy pulls back, Kara’s arms slackening enough in surprise to let her loose as she frowns down at Lucy in confusion.

“So,” Lucy says. “How do you want to do this?”

Kara arches an eyebrow. “Do what?”

“Decorate, of course,” Lucy replies, gesturing widely to the room around them.

She considers herself lucky in that moment that she can’t actually go blind from Kara’s beaming smile. It really is a beautiful sight to wake up to.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (from pc in the comments) “after the superflash episode i really want to imagine more of Kara assembling IKEA furniture”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another established relationship fic. I’ll be trying to get to the other prompts some of you have left in the comments soon.
> 
> Hopefully this is sort of what you were looking for? If not, I’m sorry. Also, fair warning: I’ve never assembled IKEA furniture in my life, I’ve never even stepped foot in an IKEA store, so… yeah, I kind of skimped on any details there. Anyway, thanks for reading and for all of your lovely comments, and apologies for any mistakes but it's 2 am and I need to sleep.
> 
> And if you haven't yet seen [ this art by comickergirl ](http://comickergirl.tumblr.com/post/141886421066/had-to-draw-it-had-to), which inspired the 'Panel A' line, then you should definitely take a look.

“Kara, what are you doing?”

Kara lifts a thick wooden board and examines it closely before placing it back on the pile sitting in the middle of their living room. She doesn’t seem to have heard Lucy, too focused on the sheet of paper in her hand, brow furrowed adorably as she attempts to decipher whatever is on it.

Lucy shuts the front door behind her and steps closer, getting a better look at what appear to be assembly instructions. “Kara?”

She doesn’t know how she can possibly startle an alien with super hearing, but Kara jumps and looks up from her spot on the floor when she finally registers Lucy’s presence.

“Oh. Hey, Lucy!”

“Hey,” Lucy laughs. “What are you up to?”

Kara’s frown returns as she glances back at the instructions. “Well, I’m _trying_ to assemble these bookshelves for the children’s ward at National City Hospital, but…” She huffs. “This makes no sense! What do these labels even _mean_?” With a sigh and a small pout, Kara tilts sideways to lean her head against Lucy’s thigh.

“Aw,” Lucy says, running her fingers soothingly through Kara’s golden hair. “Has the Girl of Steel been bested by IKEA furniture?”

Still pouting, Kara pulls back to shoot her a mock glare. “Hey, don’t judge. These instructions are complicated,” she complains. “I’ve solved astrophysics problems easier than this.”

Lucy laughs, kneeling down and pulling Kara back into her with one arm and reaching for the instruction sheet with the other. “How did you even get involved in this anyway?”

“In what?” Kara mumbles, still tucked into Lucy’s side.

“The bookshelves for the hospital. I thought you were out patrolling tonight.”

“I was. There was a car accident, and I flew a little girl to the hospital for treatment. While I was there, I saw a nurse struggling with these boxes of bookshelves that had been donated, so I offered to help.”

“And somehow that translated to you bringing them home?” Lucy asks teasingly.

“Well I didn’t want to inconvenience the hospital staff,” Kara reasons. She sits up straight as Lucy pulls away to reach for the board that had been discarded earlier.

“Come on, then,” Lucy says. “I’m sure together we can figure this out.”

“Really?”

Lucy smiles. “Of course. The children need their new bookshelves.” She turns the board over in her hand, squinting at the sticker meant to indicate its position in the construction process. “I’m no astrophysicist, but I did help Lois build a birdhouse once when we were kids,” she jokes. “How difficult can this be?”

The answer to her question, it turns out, is _very difficult_. Two hours, a mountain of takeout, and three pints of ice cream later, they have finally managed to assemble both of the bookshelves Kara had brought home, with no shortage of frustration and utter confusion along the way.

“That’s it,” Kara declares, falling onto her back with a sigh. “I have fulfilled my quota of furniture-assembling heroics for a lifetime. I never want to see the term ‘Panel A’ ever again.”

Lucy lays flat beside her, lets Kara reach out and tug her into a half-embrace before she says, “You know, you still have to take these back to the hospital. They probably think that you’ve stolen them at this point.”

Kara emits a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Thanks for reminding me.”

And, yeah, Lucy kind of regrets doing that when Kara rolls away from her and jumps to her feet, leaving a sudden coldness along the length of her body where her personal Kryptonian furnace had just been.

She watches Kara lift a shelf carefully in either hand.

“For the record, I hate IKEA.”

“Isn’t half the furniture in this apartment from IKEA?” Lucy retorts skeptically.

In a very mature display, Kara pokes her tongue out, somehow looking both completely ridiculous and painfully adorable as she stands there in full Supergirl regalia with giant bookshelves dangling from her hands. After a moment, she admits, “Alex assembled all of that for me, actually. She’s pretty good at it.”

“What?” Lucy exclaims, sitting up. “And you didn’t think to call her at any point during the two hours we struggled to put those together?”

Kara shrugs playfully. “I guess I just liked watching the faces you made while you were trying to read the instructions.” Then she grins, and damn it, that is so unfair. There is no way she can be frustrated when the woman is looking so endearingly delighted.

“Okay, get out of here,” Lucy urges lightly, waving a hand towards the balcony. “And get back soon. Or else I’ll eat the last container of Half Baked in the freezer.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Kara gasps.

“Fine, you’re right. I love you too much.” At Kara’s bright smile, she adds, “I will save you _one_ chunk of cookie dough.”

Kara’s eyes widen. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in fifteen.”

In the next second, she’s disappearing off the balcony and into the night, leaving Lucy to stare down at the discarded instructions with a tired frown, wondering what had happened to the relaxing night she’d had planned. Stupid IKEA.

She gets up to grab the ice cream.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (from supernena25 in the comments) “You know what would be great, a betting pool on the DEO for when they’ll get together and Alex participating maybe even Hank”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did my best on filling this one, but I think this sort of just ended up being a little silly and I’m not all that happy with it. Ah, well. Anyway, I might be posting another, probably not-so-happy one soon so look out for that. And my continual thanks for all of your comments and kudos!

“Put me down for fifty bucks on it happening after a near-death experience.”

“Okay. Your loss, man.”

“What, why? What did you put yours on?”

“A hundred says it happens right before a risky op.”

Kara doesn’t know what exactly she’s hearing as she makes her way through the DEO, but it’s clear enough to make her wonder whether Lucy is aware that some of her agents are involved in some kind of betting pool.

Whatever the bet is on, she never finds out, because the moment she steps foot in the command center, the conversation dies. She spots the two men who’d been whispering hurriedly spin their chairs back to face the monitors. Beside them, Vasquez appears to be shaking her head in amusement, or perhaps exasperation.

Shrugging, Kara returns her focus to the reason she had come here, and seeks out Lucy amongst the roomful of agents clad in their black uniforms. Sometimes coming to this place after being in the brightness of the CatCo offices can be a bit of a downer, she thinks absently.

Kara spots Lucy near one of the control stations on the room’s perimeter. She’s talking quietly with J’onn, her co-director ever since his return and subsequent exoneration, and Alex, who has her back turned to Kara’s approach. Any gloomy feelings Kara might have in response to the darkness of the DEO dissipate instantly when Lucy notices her coming and gives her a warm smile.

“Supergirl,” she greets, prompting J’onn to nod his welcome and Alex to turn around.

“Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

They’ve been working for the past week to update alien containment protocols and strengthen the structural security of the cells holding their more powerful prisoners, including the Kryptonians still left standing after the battle with Non and Myriad. For the most part, it’s been running smoothly, but today Kara had been called in to help test out some of the new features, everyone hoping to avoid the risk of escapees in the event that those features fail to perform as intended.

“So far, so good,” Alex announces, showing Kara the schematics on the tablet she’s holding.

“We’ll be ready for you to start the tests in about fifteen minutes,” J’onn adds. “In the meantime, Agent Danvers and I have something to settle with Agent Lee.”

Lucy furrows her brow, seemingly puzzled by this information. “Is there a problem with Lee that I haven’t been made aware of?”

“No, it’s nothing important,” he replies, waving off her concern. He turns to go. “We’ll be back before the testing begins.”

Alex pats Kara’s arm with a smile and quiet “See you later” before following J’onn out of the room.

Once they’re gone, Lucy turns to her and nods in the direction of a different exit. “Let’s talk.”

Kara trails silently behind her down the hall until they reach Lucy’s office, slipping in after her and shutting the door.

And now it’s just them, in the relative privacy of the office, and Kara can’t help but smile shyly at the way Lucy’s gaze suddenly softens more than she’d ever allow anyone other than Kara to see.

“How was CatCo today?” Lucy asks after a moment, finally looking away to shuffle some papers on her desk.

“It was fine,” Kara answers with a shrug. “Nothing too out of the ordinary. Although I did stop Ms. Grant from firing what would have been the third Tribune editor in two weeks. The current editing staff is overworked as it is. I didn’t think they could stand to lose anyone else before we hired some replacements.”

Lucy chuckles, giving a familiar nod. “I can’t say I’m surprised, what with the number of terminations that passed over my desk while I worked there.” She leans against the space she’d cleared on her desk and reaches out a hand, inviting.

Kara moves to tangle their fingers together, allowing Lucy to pull her close. “Do you ever miss it?”

“What?”

Kara leans her cheek against the crown of Lucy’s head. “CatCo. The legal stuff.”

“Not really.” Lucy shrugs. “I like it here at the DEO. I like the work we do,” she says. “If I miss anything, it’s seeing you in a more casual setting at work. I always liked to see you sitting there surrounded by all the bright splashes of yellow on your desk whenever I visited Cat’s office. Your cheery disposition can be contagious.”

Kara grins at that, knowing Lucy can feel the shift of Kara’s cheek where it’s pressed against her hair. “Aww. That’s really sweet.”

Lucy swats at her half-heartedly. “Shut up.”

“Why don’t you make me, Director Lane?”

Lucy grabs the front of Kara’s suit and pulls her down into a kiss.

* * *

“We just think it’d be a little unfair,” Lee explains, though not without a hint of trepidation. He is, after all, speaking to two of the DEO’s top agents. “I mean, you both have close relationships with Supergirl. And, well, no offense, Director Henshaw sir, but I think the mind-reading thing counts for a rather significant advantage.”

J’onn just stares him down.

“You already took our bets, Lee,” Alex argues, after the intimidation has had some time to simmer. “No backing out now.”

Lee, to his credit, doesn’t physically shrink back. “I’m sorry. I just can’t in good conscience allow people with inside knowledge to participate.”

“‘Inside knowledge?’” Alex echoes. “It’s not as though either of us can see the future, Lee. Even knowing them as well as we do doesn’t make it any easier to predict when those two will get their heads out of their asses.”

“Not to mention,” says J’onn, “Director Lane is a friend. And I don’t trespass in the minds of friends and allies.”

Lee’s eyes widen slightly. “Of course not, sir. I-”

“Just give it up, Lee,” Alex interrupts. “We all want our shot at the cash.”

“But-”

A rookie agent Alex can’t remember the name of pokes his head into the room then, rapping his knuckles against the doorframe. “Sorry to interrupt, sirs. Ma’am. But the team is ready to begin testing on the new Kryptonian confinement.”

Alex looks back at Lee. “We’ll talk later.” Her concerns about Kara getting herself hurt in testing supersede her desire to take all of her coworkers’ money.

She and J’onn make their way back to the command center, the young agent tagging along behind them like an eager puppy. Who hired this kid?

“Hey, were you guys talking about the betting pool?” he asks, and continues before either of them has a chance to respond. “Wow. I’m kinda surprised _you two_ are involved. I’ve been meaning to get in on it, but it’s pretty hard to predict how any romance will unfold. Let alone one between Supergirl and Director Lane, you know? But I’ve noticed the way they-”

Too late, Alex spins around to shoot the agent a silencing glare. Lucy and Kara are _right there_ as they step into the command center. There is no way they hadn’t heard.

She sees Lucy stiffen. “I’m sorry. _What?_ ”

Alex sighs. She’d been distracted by her thoughts, but that’s hardly an excuse. It had been risky enough discussing the bet while Kara and her super hearing are around, and then she’d just let this kid blabber on about it without thinking. _Crap_.

“Did I hear that right?” Kara asks, disbelieving. “Are you guys seriously placing bets on the relationship between Lucy and I?”

Alex can’t tell if she’s angry or amused.

Lucy steps forward. “Explain,” she orders sharply.

“Come on, the looks you two give each other are pretty hard to miss,” Vasquez offers, almost cheeky. Her smile dims slightly at Lucy’s look and she clears her throat. “Respectfully, of course, ma’am.”

Lucy opens her mouth to respond, but Kara’s sudden, boisterous laughter cuts her off. Everyone turns to stare at her in bewilderment.

“I’m sorry,” she gets out between giggles. “It’s just, you’ve all apparently wagered money on when Lucy and I will get together. And we-” She pauses to laugh again, and Lucy, clearly seeing where she’s going with this, begins laughing as well.

Alex frowns. “What?”

Sobering a bit, Kara replies, “We’ve been… kind of… secretly dating for about a month now.”

Alex is pretty sure some jaws drop, including her own.

“I’m sorry. I was going to tell you, Alex, I swear. Everything’s just been so crazy lately and I guess I kind of just forgot that you didn’t know.”

“Kara, how-?” Alex questions, after a moment of stunned silence. “You’re terrible at keeping secrets.”

“I am not,” Kara protests.

“Remind me again how many people know your identity?”

Kara shrugs, sheepish.

“So, uh… Does that mean nobody wins the bet?” the rookie agent asks hesitantly.

“Nope!” Vasquez crows, her smile smug. “It means I’m now about a thousand dollars richer.”

“What? How?” Alex splutters.

“I wagered that they were already dating. Maybe trying to keep it secret for professional reasons.” Lucy raises a brow and Kara blushes when Vasquez waves airily at the two of them, practically standing hip to hip without even realizing. “But like I said. Obvious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any errors. It's one in the morning and I am only giving these a cursory look-over before posting.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: None, really, but I guess it kind of spun off of this one: “Imagine person A holding person B in their lap and rocking them to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one for the established relationship category in the canon-verse. Next up is more AU and less sadness, and then a fulfillment of the last (I think) prompt I’ve received in the comments.

“NO!”

Kara startles awake, eyes flashing open and heat bursting from them before she can stop it. When her vision clears, she’s staring up at a pair of two-inch holes burned into her bedroom ceiling. She takes half a second to feel relieved that no one lives above her.

It’s not until she hears Lucy’s voice growing louder beside her that Kara realizes her ears had been ringing as well.

“Kara? Kara!” Lucy gives her a shake, finally pulling her mind out of its post-nightmare haze.

“I’m sorry,” Kara whispers, blinking back the tears suddenly stinging at her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she repeats.

Lucy’s grip on her shoulders loosens, hands sliding softly downwards until they reach Kara’s own. “Sorry for what? Kara, what happened?”

“I-” Kara chokes on a sob, and finds herself being quickly tugged up and into Lucy’s arms, her embrace as tight as humanly possible. Kara draws some comfort from it. “I couldn’t save them,” she finishes, the words coming out as hardly more than a whisper. She sniffles and then sighs as Lucy somehow manages to hold her tighter.

“Save who?” Lucy asks, just as quiet. She knows better, by now, than to try and reassure Kara with platitudes. “It was only a nightmare” doesn’t apply in Kara’s world, because they never are.

There is too much in her past, and every nightmare is merely her memory finding different ways of torturing her anew.

It takes Kara a few minutes to find her words, but finally she says, “I was on Krypton again. Everyone was there this time. My parents, Kal-El, Aunt Astra. But also you, and Alex, and Eliza and Jeremiah. And J’onn, James, Winn. Even Cat.” Her voice grows quieter with every name, until she’s sure Lucy must be straining to hear everything she’s saying. “Everyone I’ve ever cared about, trapped on a dying planet as I stood there, frozen. All I could do was scream. It felt like every time I’d ever felt helpless was reoccurring all at once.”

Lucy strokes at her back as she speaks, and when she’s finished, Lucy’s fingers come up to tangle in the hair at the back of Kara’s head, gently urging her to rest it against the curve her girlfriend’s neck.

“It’s been a while since you’ve had one anywhere near that bad.” And Kara can tell she’s searching for the right words to take all the pain away, even though they both know it isn’t really possible. Kara has lost too much, suffered too much, for the scars of it all not to linger, and sometimes, on nights like this, they will inevitably rear their ugly heads.

“I know,” is all she says in response, already losing the battle with her drooping eyelids as Lucy sets them into a slow rocking motion on the bed. Except she doesn’t want to go back to sleep quite yet, not eager to return to a place where the dreams might find her again.

So she fights it. She hugs Lucy back as tightly as she dares and listens to the steady beating of their hearts, loud in her hears and almost perfectly in sync. She takes solace in the fact that ‘el mayara’ holds no matter what planet she’s on.

When Lucy had been appointed director of the DEO, Kara had promised to help her in any way she could. She hadn’t imagined then that Lucy would one day do the same for her, but now, Kara knows, it’s something she wouldn’t trade for any world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: We’re the only ones in Denny’s at three in the morning and why did you order five plates of eggs?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this one, Supergirl is a thing, but Lucy is merely a lawyer and not involved in superhero-related business at all. Also not established-relationship like the last few have been, sorry. Anyway, I’m not really sure what this is and I can’t even remember the last time I went to a Denny’s, but here you go.

Lucy is exhausted. Since 2 p.m., she had been working almost nonstop on a case she is convinced will either make or break her career. And Lucy is a damned good lawyer, so she knows it will be the former.

Except now it’s three in the morning and she’s starving as a result of her decision to forgo dinner in favor of maximum work efficiency. So she finds herself wandering a block and a half north of her office and into the liminal space that is a Denny’s restaurant in the wee hours before dawn.

There is absolutely nothing to look forward to in the food here, but Lucy is fairly certain she doesn’t even have the energy to stick something in the microwave at home, so it will have to do. She isn’t sure she has any food left to microwave anyway.

When she pushes through the glass doors and into the restaurant, she finds it unsurprisingly quiet. There’s a single waitress lingering near the back counter and the only other patron sits in a booth close by, nursing a mug of something hot, the steam from it curling up to fog the woman’s glasses. She doesn’t seem to mind.

Following a vague gesture from the waitress, Lucy shuffles over to a booth two spaces down from the woman who, upon second glance, doesn’t even appear to be fully awake.

A moment later, the waitress brings an offering of coffee that Lucy gladly accepts, takes her order of pancakes and a side of bacon, and then disappears into the kitchen.

It’s kind of eerily silent after that. Lucy sips slowly at her mediocre coffee and looks again toward the other woman over the rim of the mug, observing the way her features seem almost otherworldly in the dimmed lighting of the restaurant.

Except then she starts to feel like a creep, so she turns her gaze away and instead watches as the waitress reemerges from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with about five plates of eggs.

Lucy thinks she might be hallucinating from the lack of sleep at first, because she is positive there is no one else in this restaurant, and surely one half-asleep young woman cannot possibly have ordered what she guesses amounts to about two dozen eggs. That’s ridiculous.

But even after blinking a few times, the mass of food on the waitress’s tray does not disappear, and Lucy can only watch on in bewilderment as the five plates of eggs are laid out in front of the blonde, who seems to come to life at the sight of food. Her thanks is exuberant, the delight on her face contagious enough to draw little smiles from the other two women.

Once the waitress leaves, telling Lucy she’d return shortly with her own order, Lucy returns to her coffee and subtle observation.

Watching the woman eat with all the enthusiasm of a kid let loose in an ice cream parlor, Lucy isn’t sure whether to feel impressed or nauseated by the size of her appetite. How anyone could love scrambled eggs that much is beyond her.

When the woman looks up abruptly and meets her eyes, Lucy realizes her staring might not have been as subtle as she’d thought.

“Do you want some eggs?” It’s light and teasing and absolutely the last thing Lucy had expected her to say after catching a stranger watching her eat in a diner in the middle of the night. The fact that the offer had sounded at least somewhat genuine doesn’t help, either.

Caught off guard, Lucy prides herself in at least managing not to stutter her reply. “No, thank you. You look pretty hungry.” She also looks just pretty, but Lucy isn’t going to say that aloud.

“I get really hungry after I finish work,” the woman says, a humorous glint in her eye. She pushes aside her empty second plate and reaches for the next. Lucy is pretty sure any job that works a person hard enough that they need to consume five plates of food afterward can’t be entirely legal.

“And you decided that a couple dozen eggs sounded satisfying?” she returns skeptically.

The woman shrugs, her face brightening again with a cheerful smile Lucy had once believed no one to be capable of at 3 a.m. “Well I had waffles, too. Before you got here.”

She can’t be serious.

“You can’t be serious.” Okay, so Lucy may tend to lack a filter when she’s sleep deprived and running solely on caffeine. “How are you not sick?”

The woman only laughs, scooping up another bite of her eggs.

Lucy’s own food arrives then, and she takes a moment to pour syrup over her pancakes, leaving her sort-of dining companion to finish off another plate.

She’s three bites in and somewhat regretting her life choices when the woman speaks again.

“I’m Kara, by the way,” she says, her voice soft enough not to shatter the tranquility of the silence that had settled.

“Lucy,” Lucy replies, just as softly.

Kara smiles at her in response, cheeks bulging with food, and Lucy thinks she probably shouldn’t find it so endearing, but she does, so she smiles back and crunches down on a strip of bacon in an attempt to keep it nonchalant.

“So, what brings you here for breakfast at this time of night?” Kara wonders, stacking the fourth empty plate, and seriously, where is she putting it all?

“More like a really late dinner,” Lucy tells her. She stabs at her soggy pancakes and then reaches for another piece of bacon. “It was this or a bag of chips from the vending machine at my office.”

“Well I’m glad you chose to come here. It gets too quiet at this time.”

Lucy arches an eyebrow. “You come here a lot?”

“Not here, specifically,” Kara answers, dragging her fork through the remaining eggs on her plate. Maybe she’s finally full. “But I guess I do tend to eat out a lot, and 3 a.m. is a pretty lonely time of night to do that.”

“What do you-” Before Lucy can finish her question, Kara’s standing, stiff and eyes glazed over as though she’s no longer fully present in the restaurant. And then as quick as the change had been, she seems to come back to herself, tugging some cash from her pocket and tossing it onto the table as she slides fully out of the booth.

“I have to go,” Kara says, apologetic. She turns to hurry out the door but pauses halfway there, looking back at Lucy over her shoulder. “Sorry. It was really nice meeting you, Lucy. I hope I see you again sometime.”

Then, faster than Lucy’s exhaustion-addled brain can apparently comprehend, she’s gone. Lucy, certain she looks about as perplexed as she feels, merely stares for a moment at the empty space where Kara had been only a few seconds ago.

And when Kara’s parting words finally register in her mind, she smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have that last comment prompt to fill, which will come next, but I'm not sure when so apologies in advance. I probably won't be able to update until after the 14th because I have a convention and an exam between now and then.
> 
> Thanks again for all of your support on this collection!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (from lexitania in the comments) “pre reveal but post James breakup. Kara wants to see Lucy again and hasn't met Clark’s girlfriend. Lucy doesn't know that Kara is related to her sister’s boyfriend who she's heard so much about from both James and Lois but has never met officially. Clark, who has realized that Kara has it bad for Lucy and wants to help out his puppy cousin, tells Lois that she should meet his cousin who's practically his sister and while we're at it why don't you introduce me to your sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I tried to fulfill this prompt as best as I could so I hope this at least sort of what you wanted.
> 
> Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these, but life has been hectic. And on that note, I apologize in advance for any mistakes because I didn't really check this over. I’m also working on a multi-chapter Kara/Lucy fic that I’m hoping to get uploaded eventually but until then I will continue posting these at whatever rate reality allows.
> 
> Also if anyone is curious, I kind of base my characterization of Clark and Lois off the Smallville versions of the characters with maybe a hint of TNAOS (sorry but I could honestly care less for the current movie versions of them). And while I’m sure Lucy probably has actually met Clark at this point, for the sake of this prompt we’ll say that’s not the case. Whether or not she knows he’s Superman is another matter, but we’ll make that a no in this case, too. Suspension of disbelief can be our friend with some details of this one-shot. Also who knows if Kara might have ever met Lois when she was younger but it seems as though Kara doesn’t really have much of an in-person relationship with Clark, most of their interactions being online, which could explain how Lucy never knew Kara until recently. Hopefully all these relationships will be explored to some degree in future seasons, if we get any. But for now, on with the fic.

“Hey, Lois?” Clark calls. His thumb swipes over the screen of his phone as he reads through his last text conversation.

“Hmm?” comes Lois’s absent reply. She’s focused on the mess of notes in front of her, working on her next article. There’s a pen tucked behind either ear and she’s tapping a third against her bottom lip, deep in thought. It is a sight that never fails to make him wonder how she ever manages to get anything done, let alone one front-page article after another.

“When’s the last time you talked to your sister?” Clark asks. He tucks his phone away and steps up behind her, freeing her ears of the forgotten pens.

Lois glances up at him, eyes narrowed. “Why?”

He’d been hoping to take advantage of her distracted state to get her to agree to something she wouldn’t normally, but apparently the mention of her family is enough to pull Lois fully out of her writing headspace. Changing tactics, Clark flashes her his most charming smile and begins kneading gently at her shoulders.

“Well,” he begins, all faux-innocence he knows she’ll see right through, “I was just thinking that we’ve been together for quite some time and yet I still haven’t actually met Lucy.”

Lois scoffs. “Sure you have.”

Clark pauses in his ineffective ministrations and spins her desk chair around to give her a raised eyebrow. “Lois, saying ‘hi’ a couple of times over Skype does not count.” Lois opens her mouth to protest, but he soldiers on, determined. “You never invite her to visit. She wasn’t able to make it to our wedding six years ago because she was overseas. I’m starting to think I’ll never get to know my sister-in-law.”

“Okay, first of all, we did not want both my father  _ and _ my sister at our wedding,” Lois insists, rising from the chair to rest her hands on Clark’s biceps. “It would have been a mess. I’d have lost my mind before I even made it to the altar. Second, Lucy and I aren’t exactly close. I’m pretty sure she’d just laugh if I asked her to visit. Not to mention she takes after our father and it’s more than possible his… distaste… for you as a son-in-law has rubbed off on her to some extent. Do you really want to test those waters?”

“Yes,” Clark replies, earnest. He pulls her hands from his arms and holds them in his own. “You know family is important to me, Lois. And wouldn’t you like to get on better terms with your sister? You know, you’re not getting any-”

“Do not finish that sentence, Kent.”

Clark chuckles. “And anyway, now that Lucy is working in National City-”

“For  _ Cat Grant _ , of all people.”

“-she isn’t moving around as much. I think now would be a great time for her to visit.”

Lois arches one dark eyebrow and stares up at him for a moment. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.” Clark’s phone vibrates in his pocket then, reminding him of the reason he had devised this plan in the first place. “Hey, why don’t we make this into a dinner party of sorts? This Friday. I’ll invite my cousin to visit, too. I hardly ever see her, and you two have never met, through Skype or otherwise. It’ll be great. Sort of like a small family reunion.”

Lois hums in consideration. “Your cousin? As in the other alien that flies around in a cape and probably eats as much as you do?” She sighs. “We’re going to need a lot of food for this dinner party. And I sure as hell won’t be cooking it. Thanksgiving 2008 was enough of a disaster, thank you very much.”

Clark brightens. “So is that a yes? And trust me, I would not ask you to do the cooking,” he adds, shuddering slightly at the memory of that particular catastrophic holiday.

With a good-natured roll of her eyes, Lois settles back into her desk chair and reaches beneath a pile of documents to extract her cell phone. “Well, for the record, I think you’re greatly overestimating the potential for success here. But fine. I’ll give Lucy a call.”

Clark leans down to kiss her soundly and then retreats to the kitchen to make his own call. Kara picks up on the second ring.

“ _ Clark? _ ”

“What, no ‘hello’?” he teases.

“ _ Sorry, it’s just… You never call me. _ ”

Clark sobers. “I know. But I’m calling you now.” Sometimes he finds himself regretting that he hadn’t taken Kara in when she’d first landed on Earth. But he’d been young, still adjusting to his role as Superman, and he knew, even then, that he couldn’t have given Kara the life she deserved.

Now isn’t the time for thoughts of tremendous burdens and dead planets, however. He shakes those thoughts away and returns his focus to the conversation, noticing for the first time the sound of rushing air over the line. “Are you flying?”

“ _ Yes, _ ” Kara admits.

“Is this a bad time? I can call later.”

“ _ No, no! It’s fine, _ ” she insists. “ _ I’m just in a rush to get to work. I got distracted texting you earlier and now I’m late. _ ”

Clark chuckles. “So it  _ is _ a bad time.”

There’s a pause as Kara seems to reach her destination, the rush of wind cutting off abruptly, followed by a thud he assumes is her boots landing on the pavement. “ _ Oh. Right. _ ” she answers finally. “ _ I guess it is. _ ” He hears the ring of a bell before she continues, “ _ But I have a little time to talk. I still have to get Ms. Grant’s coffee. _ ”

“I’ll make it quick, then,” Clark tells her. “I just wanted to invite you to dinner. Here. With me and Lois.”

“ _ Really? _ ”

“Really,” he confirms. “When we were texting earlier, I… uh… got the impression you could use some good home-cooking.”

“ _ Clark, we were talking about James and Lucy. And my… other job. Not food. _ ” She sounds mildly suspicious, and he groans internally.

_ Nice cover, Clark. _

“Right!” he exclaims, scrambling. “But I was just thinking, if you’re anything like me, you probably don’t have a lot of time for anything but takeout. And you know, you’ve been here what, twelve years now? I think it’s high time you met Lois.”

What Clark doesn’t tell her is that even over text message, he can tell how much of a lovesick puppy she is for Lucy Lane, whether she knows it herself, or not. He’d thought, in the beginning, that it was Jimmy she was interested in, but since the breakup, Kara has mentioned more than once how much she misses seeing Lucy every day. Subtle, his cousin is not.

“ _ Seriously? _ ” Kara asks, her suspicion shifting into excitement, much to Clark’s relief. “ _ I finally get to meet Lois? _ ”

He smiles, endeared by her reaction. “Yeah, I’d love for you guys to meet. I know we both agreed it would be safer for us not to have much in-person contact, especially since you adopted your alter ego, but I think one dinner at our place won’t do any harm.”

“ _ That sounds great, Clark. _ ”

He hears the bell on the coffee shop door ring again and decides to wrap things up before he has a chance to say anything stupid again. “Great! How’s this Friday?”

“ _ Friday works, _ ” Kara replies. “ _ Text me the details later? _ ”

“Sure. See you soon, Kara.”

“ _ Bye, Clark. _ ”

After he hangs up, Clark returns to their home office and finds Lois already finished with her own call. She turns to face him as he stops to lean in the doorway.

“So I guess Luce left CatCo over a month ago. Apparently she’s been back in Metropolis for two weeks.”

“Really?” Clark takes a second to pride himself on how genuine his surprise sounded.

“Yep. And in even more shocking news, she agreed to come to dinner on Friday.”

Clark grins. “That’s great, Lois. Kara said she could make it, too.”

“Oh, crap. I forgot to mention your cousin was coming. Don’t they know each other?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fine,” Clark says, waving a dismissive hand. “They can be surprised.”

Lois eyes him skeptically. “The last time I surprised my sister with something, she sucker punched me in the gut. Haven’t thrown a surprise party since.”

“How old was she?”

“Seven.”

Her expression warns him not to laugh, but he does anyway, not bothering to duck when Lois tosses a pen at him.

* * *

Kara leaves the office promptly at five on Friday night. She hurries home to grab a change of clothes, texts Alex to remind her to call if any Supergirl business comes up, and then flies off toward Metropolis.

She’s more than a little excited to finally meet the famous Lois Lane (or infamous, if you ask Cat). Though she understands the reasons for Clark keeping his distance after leaving her with the Danvers – not least of which was the pain it would have caused her younger self to be reminded every day that the one job with which her parents had entrusted her had been ripped away just as her planet had – she still sometimes wonders what it would have been like to grow up with her cousin in some capacity. Regardless, Kara is eager for the chance to spend some time with this side of her family.

It takes her an hour and a half at top speed to reach Metropolis, and when she touches down on the roof of Clark’s apartment building to change out of her Supergirl costume, she’s a little out of breath. Clark appears in the roof-access doorway seconds later, grinning brightly at her as she tugs her fingers through her windblown hair and slips on her glasses.

“Kara, you made it!” he greets.

Kara smiles and steps forward into an embrace. It had been too long since she’d hugged someone as tightly as she can. It’s a nice feeling.

“Hey, Clark. Am I late?”

“Nope. Right on time.” He leads her inside and down two floors to his apartment, ushering her through a door at the end of the hall. “Hope you’re hungry,” he says, and Kara perks up at the scent of food that wafts through the entryway.

“Always.”

They’re interrupted by an argument breaking out in what Kara presumes to be the kitchen.

She sees Clark wince and offer a sheepish smile. “Oh, hey. I forgot to mention. We invited another guest.”

“Who…?” Kara follows him into the kitchen, halting in surprise when she sees a familiar face sitting at the table with Lois. “Lucy?”

Lucy appears just as nonplussed as she is. “Kara? What are you doing here? And in Metropolis?”

It dawns on Kara then – and by the way Clark’s teeth clack together, she assumes he realizes, too – that a normal person would not travel from National City to Metropolis for a single evening meal.

“Uh…” Clark laughs awkwardly, nudging at his glasses. Lois rolls her eyes.

“I’m visiting!” Kara exclaims. “For the weekend. I’m visiting Metropolis. My flight just landed. Well, it didn’t  _ just  _ land. ‘Cause that would be– that would be crazy, since the airport is… far…”

“Kara,” Clark interrupts, looking almost pained by her attempt at an explanation. He turns to Lucy, who looks no less confused than she had a moment ago. “Um, what Kara means to say is that she took a taxi from the airport and it just dropped her off. And she’s here to visit because she’s my cousin.”

Lucy furrows her brow at Kara. “You are? How did I not know that?”

“I guess it just… never came up.” Kara shrugs uncertainly.

“Yeah… guess not.”

Kara shuffles for a moment, nervous, before she plucks up the courage to move closer. “I’ve missed you. Um, around CatCo,” she says. “The new general counsel is… Well, he’s not you.”

Lucy’s response is a warm smile. When Kara tentatively opens her arms, Lucy stands to hug her, murmuring “I missed you, too, Kara. It’s good to see you.”

Lois’s groan cuts into the moment. “Oh, brother,” she says. “You two are like me and Clark circa 2004.”

Clark coughs and Lucy glares. Kara only feels confused. “What–?”

“So, uh, how about dinner?” Clark interjects, clapping his hands together.

Shrugging, Kara allows him to guide her into the seat beside Lucy and listens with some impatience as he describes the meal he’d prepared.

There’s a lot of food, she notices. Probably more suitable for a group of ten than four. That is, if two of the four weren’t aliens with truly impressive appetites. But no one comments on the amount of food, and a vaguely awkward dinner ensues.

Lois and Lucy communicate mostly in jibes. Lois questions Kara about her life and what it’s like to serve the insufferable Cat Grant. And every few minutes, Kara catches Clark eyeing her and Lucy like he’s expecting something. What that is, Kara hasn’t the faintest idea.

The brightest part of her evening is getting to talk with Lucy again. After her breakup with James, Lucy had left quickly, and it wasn’t until she was gone that Kara realized how much she had enjoyed having her around.

Something about Lucy Lane just makes Kara feel good. It is a notion she had only just begun to admit to herself, that her feelings about Lucy might have evolved at some point, her infatuation with James fading somewhere into the background. But with Lucy back in Metropolis, Kara doesn’t see much point in trying to sort those feelings out any further.

After dinner and a hefty dessert – during which Lucy finally remarks on their awe-inspiring appetites, much to Lois’s poorly hidden amusement – Clark drags Kara out onto the balcony. He faces her and crosses his arms over his chest and Kara can only stare back in bemusement. They’d left Lucy and Lois alone in the living room, and she isn’t sure how long they’ll last without a buffer, but Clark had been insistent about talking to her.

“Is something wrong?” Kara asks finally.

Clark shakes his head. “Not wrong, exactly. I just couldn’t help but notice how much you seem to care about Lucy. And I was wondering when you were going to do something about it.”

Kara laughs, flustered. “Well, yeah, of course I care about her. We’re… We’re friends.”

“Is that all?” he wonders teasingly.

Kara smacks at his shoulder hard enough for him to really feel it. “Clark! Did you plan this dinner just so you could try to set me up?”

“No, of course not! That was only one of the reasons.”

“Sure,” Kara responds dryly.

Clark sighs. “Kara, you’ve talked about Lucy and how amazing you think she is in like three of our last five conversations. I wasn’t lying about wanting you to meet Lois, and I’m really glad that finally happened, but I also couldn’t help noticing your sulking after Lucy left National City and I wanted to help.” He smiles, and Kara deflates. “Do you forgive me?”

“Maybe,” Kara grumbles without a hint of malice. She knocks his shoulder one more time as she steps back inside the apartment.

Both of them stop short at the sight of Lois and Lucy laughing together.

Perhaps this night has been rather successful all around, Kara thinks. She refuses to voice the thought to Clark, though. No need to inflate the man’s ego.

After another half hour of idle conversation, Kara rises from the sofa, figuring it’s time for her to leave. She has a long flight back to National City.

“Well, I should probably go,” she says, and Lucy stands with her, brow raised.

“You’re not staying here?”

Kara blinks. She had forgotten momentarily that she’s supposedly staying the weekend in Metropolis. “No, I didn’t want to impose. And there’s only one bedroom, so… I’ll just find a hotel.”

Lucy hums thoughtfully, then says, “You can stay with me.”

“Really?” Kara raises an eyebrow. She had not been planning to stay in Metropolis at all, figuring she would just fly back home after dinner, no problem. She knows that the fact that she’s actually considering Lucy’s offer now is probably quite telling, but she decides not to dwell on that right now.

Lucy shrugs. “It’s late. Finding a place to stay at this time might be difficult. And my hotel room has two full beds. It’s no problem.”

Kara’s gaze shifts to Clark, who is giving her a look she also refuses to think about at the moment. With some measure of reluctance, Kara finds herself agreeing to the offer, suddenly feeling the need to stay in Metropolis for longer than planned.

“Okay. Thanks, Lucy.”

There is the small matter of not actually having any luggage, but at some point between Kara making the decision to stay with Lucy and being led toward the front door, Clark disappears and then returns with a random suitcase stuffed with some of Lois’s clothes.

“Don’t forget your bag,” he tells her cheekily.

If Kara’s hand knocks against his a little too hard when she goes to grab it, well, she can’t say she’s entirely apologetic about it.

* * *

The hotel Lucy has been staying in since her return to Metropolis is a short ten-minute cab ride from Lois and Clark’s apartment, and it’s spent in a surprisingly comfortable silence that gives Kara far too much time to reflect.

Silly, she thinks. This is not at all how she had expected this night to go, and yet she’s perfectly content with everything that’s happened up to this point.

It makes her wonder just how skewed her tolerance of strange experiences has become since starting out as Supergirl. Not that her life has ever been normal, exactly.

But by the time the two of them reach Lucy’s hotel room, Kara is beginning to think she has reached her limit. As she follows Lucy inside, her mind starts spiraling with all of the reasons coming here was probably a terrible idea, the most prominent of which is the fact that she’s wearing her Supergirl costume underneath her clothes, and the only things she has to change into are the unknown garments Clark had pilfered from Lois’s closet. She’ll have to change in the bathroom, bring the bag with her… but won’t that look weird? And will they even be going to sleep right away? It’s only nine o’clock. Maybe Lucy will want to talk.  _ She _ wants to talk. But is this the right time? It hasn’t been that long since–

“I’ve missed you, too, by the way,” Lucy says, shattering Kara’s haze of thoughts before they have the chance to devolve into something resembling full-blown panic.

Kara squeezes the leather handle of her borrowed luggage and turns to find that Lucy has moved to lean against one of the gaudily patterned beds. The look she’s giving her is hard to decipher, and it takes all the willpower Kara possesses not to squirm or blurt out something embarrassing.

A few quiet seconds pass before she manages a soft “Really?”

Lucy smiles. “Of course. You’re a great person, Kara. I enjoyed spending time with you.”

“Oh.” Kara feels her cheeks warm with a blush. She contemplates her response as she moves further into the room, dropping her bag at the foot of the other bed and sitting sideways to face Lucy. “Why did you leave National City?” she asks eventually.

Lucy looks surprised by the question, then solemn as she seems to consider her words carefully. “I guess I felt that it would be best for everyone if I didn’t stay. I was trying to force something that was never going to work with James, and I figured staying and living in National City would only be more of the same. I liked it there, but… It wasn’t really my place to impose.”

Kara nods in understanding. “Well, I don’t think your presence was an imposition. I think if being in National City makes you happy, then that’s where you should be. There’s no reason you and James can’t stay friends. And no offense, but it doesn’t really seem like Metropolis is home for you anymore, either.”

Lucy hums. “How do you figure?”

“Well, you’ve been living in a hotel for the last two weeks,” Kara says, waving a hand vaguely to encompass the room.

Lucy chuckles, and for a moment they simply gaze at each other in another comfortable silence. Kara is the first to look away, feeling another blush rising in her cheeks. She stares instead at a loose thread on the edge of the comforter, worrying at it with nervous fingers. Talking with Lucy isn’t proving quite as disastrous as she’d imagined, but Kara can’t say she was prepared to sense any kind of reciprocation of her feelings.

“You deserve to be happy, Lucy,” she murmurs.

Slowly, Lucy slides to the edge of her bed and stretches out a hand, laying it softly over Kara’s own. “Thanks, Kara.”

Taking a chance, Kara flips her hand over, fingers stretching to tangle with Lucy’s, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Lucy gives her a responding squeeze.

Perhaps National City won’t be losing a resident after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My continual thanks for kudos and the wonderful comments!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: None. Background: Canon-ish, pre-reveal. Lucy and James aren’t together but are friends. Game night at Kara’s apartment. Lucy is kind of appalled by what she finds there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more for you all. Not from a fic prompt this time. I just recently re-watched the first episode of 'Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' and was inspired to write this.
> 
> I've received a few more prompts in the comments recently so I'll probably be getting to those next, once I get some writing time again. I think they were all pre-relationship though, and I know some of you like to see established-relationship fics too, so I'll try to work a couple of those in, as well.

Lucy knocks at Kara’s apartment door, wondering if she’d arrived too early.

Game nights aren’t exactly her thing. Between law school and the military, she’d never really had time to adopt any leisurely inclinations outside of picking up a book every now and then. But much like James, Lucy had come to National City for a fresh start. What better way than to find some new interests?

And it doesn’t hurt that she really likes the new friends she’s made here. Kara, more than anyone, has been a delight to get to know. Lucy looks forward to opportunities for cultivating their friendship.

Which is why she’s here now, at Kara’s apartment, gripping a bottle of wine by the neck and feeling uncharacteristically questioning of the life choices that instilled in her the need to arrive at any scheduled event at least fifteen minutes early. She honestly feels a bit foolish, showing up early for a simple game night.

After a moment, the wide door swings open.

“Lucy, hey!” Kara greets, as bright and cheerful as ever.

Lucy almost chokes at the sight of her.

Kara’s blonde hair hangs damp and loose around her shoulders, which are bared by a thin white tank top that leaves little to the imagination, especially where the woman’s impressive arms are concerned. The very short shorts she’s wearing likewise do nothing to remedy the sudden dryness of Lucy’s mouth.

When Kara steps aside to let her in, Lucy stiffens her spine and draws on every ounce of professionalism to keep her mind from so much as approaching the gutter.

“Sorry,” Kara says, shutting the door behind her. “I, um, went for a run and I just got out of the shower. I only need a few more minutes to finish getting ready.”

Lucy clears her throat and nods. “No worries. I’m early, so it’s my fault, really.”

Kara waves off her tacit apology, then gestures to the bottle of Chardonnay Lucy had forgotten she was holding. “You can put that in the kitchen,” she tells her. “And help yourself to whatever you want in there. I’ll be right back.” She practically skips off in the direction of what Lucy presumes to be the bedroom, leaving Lucy to stand awkwardly for a moment in the apartment’s entryway.

Sighing at herself, she does as Kara had said and makes her way into the open plan kitchen, setting the wine on the island counter and going in search of something stronger. Except there’s no alcohol in any of the places someone would normally keep their liquor, not even a beer tucked in the back of the fridge.

There is however, a seemingly endless supply of junk food.

Kara’s cabinets and fridge are packed full of enough sweets, chips, and takeout boxes to give a health nut nightmares. In fact, this kitchen is like a five-year-old’s dream. Lucy isn’t sure she saw a single fruit or vegetable anywhere amongst the cartons of cupcakes and donuts (she’s pretty certain the gallon of fruit punch doesn’t count).

Appalled and suddenly inordinately concerned for her friend’s wellbeing, Lucy closes the fridge and spins around, just as Kara reemerges from her bedroom, hair dry and wearing significantly more clothing. Lucy pretends she doesn’t feel a tiny twinge of disappointment at that. How this woman manages to eat apparently nothing but processed carbs and look, well, the way Lucy had just seen her, she can’t even begin to fathom.

“Please tell me you have a second kitchen,” Lucy implores.

Kara’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Kara, your cupboards are full of junk,” Lucy remarks with a laugh, gesturing behind her. “How are you still alive?”

“Oh!” Kara giggles and adjusts her glasses. “Um, I just… exercise?” she offers, and Lucy raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“I’m worried you’ve never seen a vegetable before,” she jokes.

Kara’s smile is small and embarrassed. “I prefer crullers.”

“I see that,” Lucy says. She observes Kara’s flustered expression for a few more seconds, then decides to be a little bold. After all, she had moved 2,500 miles from Metropolis for a change of pace. “You need real food. I know I’m the one who’s new to the city and you offered to show me around, but maybe I should come over and cook for you sometime.”

“With vegetables?” Kara’s nose crinkles endearingly, though the way her eyes sparkle with amusement tells Lucy she’s only kidding. “Dinner would be nice,” she adds eventually.

“Great,” Lucy starts, but her response is cut short by a knock at the door.

“That must be James and Winn!” Kara exclaims and hurries to open it, her delight making her seem impossibly brighter. “They promised to bring pizza.”

Lucy can only shake her head. “Hopeless case,” she whispers with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: trapped in an elevator au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-breakup, Lucy hasn't left CatCo.
> 
> I’m sorry this is essentially the opposite of my best work and I didn’t check it over but I wanted to post something before I disappear again for another 2+ weeks. Thanks!

Kara half-listens to the angry mutterings emanating from Cat’s office in anticipation of being summoned, the rest of her focus on the documents she’s supposed to be compiling for tomorrow’s board meeting. When the inevitable “Keira!” comes, she’s already out of her chair, the telltale intake of breath alerting her beforehand.

“Yes, Ms. Grant?”

Cat looks up when Kara enters, removing one of the two pairs of reading glasses perched on her nose. “Well, aren’t you speedy today,” she remarks, then continues before Kara can stutter a response. “I need you to go down to the Tribune offices and find me the final drafts on these articles for tomorrow’s edition.” She waves a small stack of papers out and Kara takes them hesitantly, frowning as she gives them a once over.

“Um, Ms. Grant, these _are_ the final drafts,” she replies, confused. “They’re all marked as ‘ready for print.’”

Cat hums, tapping the arm of the glasses she’d removed against her bottom lip. “No, no, that can’t be right. Because surely these people know better than to send me work more suitable for a high school gossip rag than my award winning newspaper.” She slides the second pair of glasses back into place and fixes Kara with a slightly magnified but no less authoritative gaze. “So I want you to go down there and find out what is happening and who I have to fire in order for things to get done correctly. Chop, chop.”

Kara nods and tucks the apparently lackluster articles under her arm. “Of course, Ms. Grant,” she says, and leaves the office in a rush towards the elevator.

* * *

Two hours and four new and improved articles later, Kara steps back onto the elevator and hits the button to return to her floor, breathing a sigh of relief that this mess is finally dealt with to what she is confident will be Ms. Grant’s satisfaction. She had missed lunch in order to get the problem sorted as quickly as possible, so she is very much looking forward to returning to her desk and making a dent in her well-stocked snack drawer. At least she had managed to prevent any terminations for the time being. 

Partway up, the elevator slows to a stop on the floor Kara recognizes as that housing Legal, and the doors part seconds later to reveal Lucy Lane in a deep purple dress and carrying a stack of folders near bursting with what are presumably legal documents. Lucy greets Kara with a small, friendly smile as she steps inside, hitting the button for her destined floor with her elbow. “Hey, Kara.”

Kara gives her a bright smile in return. She’s careful not to crumple the papers in her hands, though it’s somewhat of a feat when Lucy is there in front of her looking as beautiful as ever. (Kara refuses to admit that she has it bad for this woman. Alex’s teasing would only reach insufferable levels.)

“Hi, Lucy.”

They’re the only ones in the car, the quiet hum of steel cables passing over pulleys as they go upward filling the space.

“Busy morning?” Lucy asks.

Kara nods, assuming she looks as frazzled as she’s been feeling. “Yeah. I’ve been dealing with the Tribune for the last two hours. Ms. Grant wasn’t happy with the content for tomorrow’s edition, so I had to-”

The screeching of elevator cables interrupts her explanation, and Kara and Lucy glance at each other as the elevator shudders to a stop.

Lucy frowns. “Did we lose power?”

“I don’t know.” Kara nudges her glasses down and attempts to take a subtle look through the walls and ceiling, searching for problems with the cables and seeing none. “I guess so.”

They’re trapped about halfway between floors, and if it weren’t for the risk of being seen by someone outside, Kara could probably do more about getting them out of here.

Not that Lucy knows her secret, either, but Kara isn’t all that opposed to finally sharing with her what neither she nor James had gotten around to after the breakup, however displeased J’onn and Alex will be later when they find out she told someone else.

But seeing as they aren’t in any immediate danger, she figures the superheroic acts can wait until they actually know what is happening. Speaking of, Kara tunes in to the various conversations taking place in the building.

It seems the problem is indeed a power outage, block-wide and cause unknown but likely not intentional or nefarious. No one is discussing the stalled elevators yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

“Well,” Lucy sighs, drawing Kara’s attention back to her immediate surroundings, “I guess we’re stuck for a while.” She drops the stack of files on the floor at her feet and leans back against the elevator railing.

Shrugging, Kara does the same with her own papers and settles on the wall opposite Lucy. “Should we call out for help?” she asks.

Lucy waves away her concern. “I’m sure they’ll work on getting us out as soon as they can.”

“Not eager to get back to work?” Kara wonders, amused by her friend’s laidback response to their predicament.

“God, no,” Lucy groans. “I was on my way to a meeting with that Chuck Collins guy in Accounting. I can’t stand him. I’d much rather be stuck here in an elevator.” The ‘with you’ goes unspoken, but Kara blushes all the same, smiling down at her shoes in a futile attempt to hide it from Lucy and her knowing smirk.

“Um, yeah,” she agrees, “I don’t like him much, either. He always treats me as though I don’t understand basic math. And once he tried to sell me a coffee maker I’m pretty sure he just stole from one of the break rooms.”

Lucy gives a dry laugh. “Why does that not surprise me?”

They manage to while away an hour on idle chitchat. Somehow, Kara ends up on the other side of the elevator sitting beside Lucy, close enough that their pinky fingers touch in the space between them, almost but not quite linked together. She forgets to listen for sounds of a rescue or efforts to restore power, that she hasn’t eaten since her second breakfast at Noonan’s when she went to retrieve Cat’s coffee.

Kara thinks she probably should have been paying better attention and not low key flirting with Lucy Lane, as nice as that’s been. When she finally listens for news again, it’s disappointing. She hears nothing to indicate that anyone is aware of the people stuck in each of the three main elevators.

Someone could have at least called the fire department by now. Cell phone service is always spotty in the elevator cars, so no one inside will have been able to call for help themselves with the elevator phones out of service.

Kara says as much to Lucy, though she leaves out the part about not hearing any news she shouldn’t be able to listen for in the first place.

“Maybe they’re just focused on getting the power back on,” Lucy suggests. “We aren’t really going anywhere so I guess we’re not priority.”

Kara nods and tips her head back to rest against the wall. “Well, hopefully they fix things soon,” she sighs. “I’m hungry.”

Lucy laughs at Kara’s pout, giving her hand a gentle pat. “Won’t be too much longer, I’m sure,” she consoles, then continues, “I wonder how far the outage extends. I don’t remember hearing anything about electrical problems in the building.”

“There’s some construction going on down the street. They must have accidentally knocked out power in the surrounding area,” Kara says, trying to sound less certain she really is. She had determined the source of the outage about ten minutes after they’d gotten stuck, hearing the alarmed and angry yells coming from the construction site. Unfortunately, they had still seemed far from fixing the problem when she’d listened in a moment ago.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, not uncomfortable but not entirely without tension, either. Lucy’s hand is still resting over Kara’s, soft and cool relative to Kara’s own alien body temperature. Kara briefly wonders whether Ms. Grant is out there looking for her assistant, or if Winn and James think she’s off on Supergirl business somewhere rather than trapped inside the building.

When the quiet becomes too much, Kara clears her throat and tilts her head to look at Lucy beside her. Lucy’s eyes meet hers, green irises darkened in the low emergency lighting of the elevator. She stares at Kara, almost expectant, but says nothing. Kara opens her mouth – to say what, even she isn’t sure – but then her ears pick up on the creak of elevator cables.

For just a second, she feels a spark of hope that they’re finally getting out of here. Except what follows isn’t the customary hum of power and turning pulleys, but the harsh sound of twisting metal and the sudden snap of weakened wires. Kara remembers then that this is the same elevator that had needed to be repaired after a cable broke and James nearly died during the earthquake a few months back.

“Lucy-” The next snap is loud enough even for human ears, though, and Kara sees Lucy jolt and look up to the ceiling in alarm. There’s no mistaking that sound for anything other than the signal of danger that it is.

Kara doesn’t have time to consider the repercussions before sweeping up Lucy and all of their documents and punching her way through the ceiling hatch, flying them upward through the elevator shaft just as the final threads of cable twist and break and send the elevator itself plummeting to the bottom. The resulting crash is loud and echoing, causing the shaft around them to shudder. Kara clutches tighter to Lucy, uncaring of the papers getting smashed between them.

That had been a split second decision Kara will find the time to be proud of later. Without the documents, no one will know they were in the elevator before it crashed. She can only imagine how difficult it would be to explain  _that_  away.

Once the initial panic subsides, Kara floats them over to the nearest ledge beneath a set of doors and lands there, still carrying Lucy, who hasn’t said a word since Kara flew her out of the elevator death trap. She stares down into the abyss of the elevator shaft until Kara asks, “Are you okay?”

Lucy nods, so Kara carefully sets her on her feet, tucking the mess of documents under one arm and reaching out to keep Lucy steady with the other.

“So,” Lucy breathes, gripping Kara’s outstretched arm, shuffling further from the edge. “You’re...”

“Yeah,” replies Kara, sheepish.

Lucy bobs her head, slow and thoughtful. “I suppose I had already put some of the pieces together. I just... didn’t want to acknowledge the truth and its implications, I guess.”

“Are you...” Kara hesitates. “Are you mad that I didn’t tell you earlier?”

Lucy’s grip on her forearm loosens, fingers sliding up to wrap around Kara’s bicep instead. “No, I’m not mad. We haven’t known each other very long, and when I first met you as Supergirl we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, so I understand the need for secrecy.” Her face softens. “I like you, Kara. And I trust you. Your secret is safe with me.”

Kara blushes, glad for the near darkness of the elevator shaft limiting Lucy’s human vision. “I trust you, too, Lucy. Thanks.”

“No, thank _you_ , Kara. For saving me. Again.”

Kara pulls Lucy closer, smiling, and then giving her elbow a squeeze when she realizes Lucy can’t see her in the darkness. “Always.”

Lucy grips her tighter. “So,” she says, “how do we get out of here?”

“Hold on.” Kara tilts her head forward until her glasses slide down her nose and peers through the doors to the floor on the other side.

By some stroke of luck – which, honestly, they deserve after that disastrous experience – it’s a relatively unoccupied floor, most of its employees spending their days chasing stories in the field. And at this moment, no one is around to notice them emerge from an empty elevator shaft. So Kara passes Lucy the pile of documents to hold with her free arm, then slides her fingers into the crack between the doors and pries them apart with ease.

She ushers Lucy out first and then steps out herself, shutting the doors again behind them.

“What are we going to tell people when they ask where we’ve been for the last hour?” Kara asks, taking her stack of Tribune articles from Lucy.

Lucy frowns thoughtfully as she heads for the staircase. “Let’s hope they don’t ask,” she says, then pauses, looking back at Kara with a teasing grin. “But if they do, well, I have an idea what we can tell them.”

Kara’s blush burns up six flights of stairs and all the way to Cat Grant’s office.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (from xreyskywalkersolo in the comments) Can you write something where Kara gets hurt in the field and Lucy flips her shit?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. Here’s one more before I temporarily disappear. I’m a top-notch procrastinator and this is what happens.
> 
> Established relationship, at some vague point in the post-finale future.

Lucy watches it happen from the wall of video displays in the command center, transmitted via the dash cam on the DEO-issue van.

It was supposed to be an easy grab. Apprehend the Fort Rozz escapee and bring him in, no muss, no fuss. They’ve dealt with this species in the past, or so Lucy’s been told – small and not particularly strong or bright. It should have been as simple as sending Supergirl in to talk him into surrender or maybe snatch him up if he tried to run, with a five-person team of backup agents there just in case.

It’s also a species that favors its solitude, which is why they hadn’t been anticipating the sudden appearance of this escapee’s partner in crime.

The second creature, big and red and brutish, comes slashing out of the shadows with its glowing alien machete just as Kara steps fully inside the warehouse where the escapees had been holing up. Kara manages to duck and roll to avoid the attack, but the action brings her further into the warehouse and further from her backup.

Lucy doesn’t need to tell the agents to get in there, but she does anyway, and watches as they hurry forward, guns raised, into the dark open doorway.

She’s sure she isn’t the only one who flinches when one of those agents sails right back out and hits the ground with what experience tells her is a sickening crunch.

“Ma’am-” Vasquez starts, but Lucy is already turning, calling out to the nearest lingering agents.

“Get backup out there! _Now!_ ”

Lucy knows she should probably call J’onn and Alex, but they’re across town, dealing with another threat, and there just isn’t time.

Onscreen, one more agent stumbles back out of the warehouse and collapses onto the dirt.

It’s impossible to see anything else but shadows moving inside, leaving them all blind to what is happening. “Come on, Kara,” Lucy murmurs.

It feels like hours later when they see the second team arrive, piling out in heavy tactical gear. There hasn’t been a response on comms since Kara was attacked and the first team went in, and Lucy’s nerves are causing blood to pump loudly in her ears. She almost misses the point agent’s report coming over the speaker.

“ _Director Lane, we’re onsite. Simmons and Hans are down. Hostile is-_ ” Her voice fizzles out into static, just as the last agents’ had, and Lucy jerks her head to Vasquez for an explanation.

“What is going on?”

“It keeps happening, ma’am,” Susan answers. “I think the aliens have some sort of signal dampening technology in place, with an effective range reaching about a meter beyond the warehouse door.”

“Can you disable it?”

Vasquez gives an apologetic shake of her head. “Not from here.”

An explosion onscreen cuts off Lucy’s response. The sound comes through a second later, when the blast knocks some of the agents backward and out of range of the dampener.

Lucy hits the mic button on her comm. “Franklin, report.”

She watches Agent Franklin gesture at the other agents on the video feed. They run inside, disappearing into the smoke, before she answers, “ _We’re okay. The explosion was small._ ”

“Bomb?” Lucy questions.

“ _I don’t think so. I think it was Supergirl, ma’am._ ”

Lucy freezes. “What do you mean?”

“ _The alien weapon was-_ ” Franklin pauses, and Lucy almost thinks they’ve lost the feed again, until she sees a few agents emerging from the warehouse dragging the smaller of the alien prisoners. “ _Hostiles have been detained, Director Lane. We’re going to need additional transport and emergency medical support._ ”

“Casualties?” Lucy just barely stops herself from demanding to know Kara’s condition immediately.

“ _Three agents critically wounded. The rest of us are a little worse for wear but otherwise fine._ ” She hesitates, and Lucy can almost guess what she’s going to say next. “ _Supergirl is hurt, too, ma’am._ ”

Lucy doesn’t have to push for details, as the remaining agents shuffle out of the warehouse carrying the second alien prisoner. Kara limps out behind them, aided by Agent Shen, and Lucy breathes a quiet sigh of relief to see her conscious and upright.

“Thank you, Agent,” she says after a moment. “Support is ten minutes out. Get everyone back here as soon as you can.”

“ _Yes, ma’am._ ”

Lucy hangs up.

* * *

An hour later, Lucy finds herself pacing outside of Medical while Alex watches on in equal parts amusement and poorly hidden concern. The latter is for Kara, of course, though the doctor had assured them she’d be fine after a few hours in the sun bed. However, that same doctor also refuses to allow them in to see her until she finishes her examination and treatment, hence Lucy’s somewhat manic pacing of the hallway.

Finally, after twenty minutes – during which Alex had left to assist J’onn on some matter or another with instructions to let her know when Kara wakes – the doctor exits Kara’s sun room with a smile and gestures Lucy inside with a quiet “Director Lane” as she departs.

Lucy remembers to shoot Alex a quick text and then pushes through the door, coming to a stop at the edge of the sun bed.

Kara looks much better than she had when she was brought in, cuts closing, bruises fading, and no longer unsettlingly pale. Lucy knows she isn’t asleep, will have heard someone enter the room, and know it’s her by the subtle physiological tells only she can detect, but she keeps her eyes closed anyway as Lucy reaches out and traces the lines of her face, fingers skimming carefully around the healing laceration at the edge of her golden hairline.

“I was worried about you.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara murmurs, eyes sliding open then to fix Lucy with a regretful gaze. “He had a sword like Vartox’s axe.” Lucy recalls that Vartox had been the first alien Supergirl ever fought. “I didn’t know it could hurt me until it was too late. But I couldn’t let him kill anyone. Eventually I managed to get the upper hand and destroy the sword with my heat vision. Except then it exploded and…” she trails off, eyes wet, and Lucy shakes her head, pressing her palm more firmly against Kara’s cheek.

“Those agents will be fine, Kara,” she assures. “It’s not your fault.”

Kara responds with a noncommittal nod and Lucy huffs, frustrated. “It’s _not_ , Kara. You were caught off guard. We all were. And it could have been much worse. You-” She growls. “Damn it, Kara, you could have _died_. I know you’re a much better fighter than you were when you went up against that Vartox guy, but one lucky shot with that weapon and-”

With noticeable effort, Kara moves to sit up, pulling Lucy’s hand from her face and holding it in both of hers. “I know,” she interrupts. “I know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Lucy replies, and it’s probably the most unconvincing lie she’s ever told, but Kara doesn’t call her out on it, only pulls her in close and wraps her in a sorely needed hug. “I don’t care if the next alien is the size of a damn goldfish. Next time you’re going in with a full team, heavily armed,” she grumbles into Kara’s neck, and Kara laughs.

“I love you, too, Lucy,” she whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kudos and comments on these one shots! The support means a lot.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “This is why you don’t ever have any shirts to wear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this half-asleep several days ago and only just remembered it, so here you go. I may have a fake dating AU in me next and then I’ll fill more prompts from the comments. Thanks!

“This is why you don’t ever have any shirts to wear.”

Kara frowns and glances down at the button-up she’d just torn open, the crest on her suit peeking out underneath. She’d been on her way out of the apartment to help with a fire downtown, but Lucy’s comment makes her pause. “I... But... What?”

Lucy laughs from her spot on the sofa. “You’re always tearing your shirts open to reveal your suit. Do you know how many loose buttons I’ve found around here and the office?”

Kara blushes, giving her ruined shirt an awkward tug as she attempts to formulate a response. But when she opens her mouth, the only thing that comes out is an oh so eloquent “Um.”

“Does your cousin do this too?” Lucy inquires teasingly.

Kara wants to defend her actions, except there’s still a fire to put out, and she honestly isn’t sure she’d be able to anyway. She knows there isn’t really any logical explanation for the whole shirt-tearing thing.

So with a small pout, Kara divests herself of the rest of her normal clothing and zips out the window in her suit.

Twenty minutes later, she returns to find Lucy still lounging on the sofa. Only, Kara knows her girlfriend must have gotten up while she was gone, because there on the coffee table in front of her is a pile of torn shirts and another of loose buttons.

Kara pushes her bottom lip out in another pout at the amusement in Lucy’s expression. “What...?”

“Look at this, Kara,” Lucy sighs, the playful glint in her eye belying her exasperated tone. “You need an intervention.”

Kara splutters and crosses her arms over her crest. “I don’t do it  _that_  often,” she protests, despite the glaring evidence sitting between them.

Lucy raises an eyebrow. “Exactly how many new shirts have you had to buy since you became Supergirl?”

Flustered, Kara snorts a laugh and replies, “Not... Not that many. Just...” Her conviction drops with every syllable. “Okay, point taken,” she concedes, and resumes her pout as she moves to slump down on the sofa beside Lucy, who only chuckles and tugs Kara into her side.

“I guess it is pretty silly,” Kara mumbles. “It’s just become sort of a habit. I don’t mean to tear them, but sometimes I’m in a hurry and it just happens.” She sighs. “I actually really liked some of those shirts.”

Lucy gives her arm a consoling pat. “To be honest, I do find this particular habit strangely endearing. A lot more so than your tendency to accidentally break the coffeemaker just when I need it most,” she says.

“Hey, I haven’t done that in weeks,” Kara replies, one weakly defensive finger held up between them before it drops back to Lucy’s lap.

After a moment, she appraises the pile of shirts again and then frowns.

“Why have you saved all of my ruined shirts, anyway?”

“I told you,” Lucy responds lightly, “Intervention. You need to learn how to re-sew a button.”

“Winn usually helps me with the sewing thing. It just seems so boring and tedious to do myself,” Kara almost whines.

“Buck up, soldier. Gotta learn sometime,” Lucy teases, and Kara laughs.

She buries her face in the crook of Lucy's neck, breathing her in for a few seconds, arms moving to wrap around Lucy’s waist. “Fine,” she grumbles. “But later. Right now, I want food.”

“You always want food.”

“That’s true.”

Still, neither moves to get up, and a peaceful quiet settles over them for a moment, until Kara shatters it with a giggle.

“I can’t believe you actually kept all those shirts.”

“Not _all_ of them,” Lucy counters, grinning into the crown of Kara’s head. “Actually, I think Alex has a few at her apartment, too. We were originally planning to tag team the intervention.”

Kara’s breathy laughter tickles at Lucy’s neck, and it takes everything in her not to squirm at the sensation. She knows Kara is doing it on purpose. Lucy refuses to give in.

After a few seconds, Kara ceases the attempted payback. “So I guess this means I’m not allowed to tear any more shirts, huh?” she says, though she’s certain that breaking the habit will be a lot easier said than done. It really is convenient to keep part of her costume on under her clothes, even if she does tend to get carried away with the whole quick-change thing. (She blames Alex and all the cheesy superhero movies she insisted Kara watch when they were kids.)

Lucy gives a thoughtful hum, her chest vibrating against Kara’s cheek, pulling Kara from memories of movie nights that had led to thoughts of popcorn and candy and pizza and…

“Well, there are _some_ cases where the tearing of clothing may be acceptable.”

Kara swallows hard. “Oh.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I may have accidentally sort of adopted five cats.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, another one I wrote on my phone and forgot about.

Lucy can safely say that the last thing she’d expected when she walked through the apartment door after work that evening was a fluffy orange cat with a bell collar rushing forward to weave between her legs, nearly sending her face first onto the floor of the entryway.

“What the hell?” She shuts the door to keep the cat from escaping – though she doesn’t know why she bothers, because the last time Lucy checked, she and Kara do not have any pets and therefore this creature does not belong in their apartment – and sidesteps the thing as she heads further inside. “Kara?”

If one cat had been unexpected, the four others scampering about the living room are enough to convince Lucy that she must be hallucinating. In the center of it all, Kara sits in her Supergirl costume with several cans of Fancy Feast and a concentrated look on her face as she pries the top off each can.

For a moment, Lucy can only stand and stare in wide-eyed disbelief at the scene.

It had been a lax day at the DEO, spent mostly on paperwork and agent training exercises, and she hadn’t heard much from Kara save for a few reports of non-alien incidents handled by Supergirl around the city. Lucy had assumed things were just busier than usual at CatCo, knowing Kara’s promotion presented her with even more responsibility than she’d had as Cat’s personal assistant.

She had not considered that Kara might be at home, playing with cats.

Eventually, Lucy finds her words. “Should I ask?”

She isn’t sure if the delight on Kara’s face is the usual response to Lucy coming home or if it has something to do with the way all of the cats race eagerly toward the cans of food when Kara lines them up on the living room floor. Either way, it might soften Lucy up, just a bit.

But she still needs an explanation.

The way Kara glances up through a curtain of blonde hair, sheepish smile in place, tells Lucy she probably isn’t going to like this explanation, though.

“I may have accidentally, sort of, adopted five cats,” Kara confesses.

“You…” Lucy runs a hand through her hair, the other moving to rest on her hip. “Okay,” she says, not sure if she should laugh or sigh. “How exactly did this happen?”

Kara pets the nearest cat – the fluffy one that had tried its best to trip Lucy five minutes ago – and stands up. Her fingers tangle anxiously in front of the crest on her suit as she takes a few steps in Lucy’s direction.

“Well, there was this fire, down at the animal shelter on Fifth,” she begins, and Lucy is almost certain she already knows where this is going. She lets Kara continue anyway. “And I managed to put out the fire before anyone got hurt, but the building was too damaged, so the fire department ordered it temporarily shut down. Which meant the workers had to find places for the animals at other local shelters. And they did, mostly. There were just a few cats they couldn’t find room for.”

Kara gestures unnecessarily to the line of feasting cats behind her. “No one in the crowd of bystanders was willing to take them. And I couldn’t just let them… you know.”

Lucy would like to say that after more than a year of dating, she had become immune to Kara’s sad puppy face, but that would be a huge lie. She is possibly even more susceptible to it now.

She sighs, but she’s smiling through it, and it makes Kara light up, as well. “So you just… what? Scooped them all up in your arms and brought them back here?”

Kara nods. “Then I went to the store and got some stuff for them. Food, litter boxes, toys,” she says. “We only have to keep them until the shelter gets fixed up, but I wanted them to be comfortable.”

Lucy dreads the day they have to give the cats back, mostly because she knows it won’t actually happen the way Kara’s implying. She’s sure at least one of these creatures will remain a permanent fixture in their family.

“Okay,” Lucy says, unable to take the _look_ Kara is giving her any longer. “I wish you’d called to warn me about this, but I guess I can handle some temporary houseguests.” She holds up a finger. “You get to do all the litter cleaning, though.”

Kara beams and claps and throws her arms around Lucy in a too-tight hug, but Lucy doesn’t complain. “You’ll love them,” she insists.

‘Love’ is definitely too strong a word, Lucy decides, peering over Kara’s shoulder to see that one of the cats still finishing its dinner is, in fact, hairless. “I don’t know,” she says. “One of them tried to trip me when I walked in.”

“Muffins? He’s just really affectionate.”

Muffins. Of course that thing’s name is Muffins.

“And that one?” Lucy asks, pointing to hairless wonder, now licking himself in lieu of his empty food can.

“Voldemort,” Kara says, and Lucy snorts. “He’s really sweet, despite the name.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I won’t be petting that one.”

“Aw, but he loves it!” To prove her point, Kara bends over and strokes the cat’s wrinkly head. Lucy hadn’t thought it was possible for a cat to look adoring but the way this one stares up at Kara as she pets his fleshy body makes her question that assumption.

She still refuses to touch it, though.

“So what are the rest called?” Lucy asks, frowning when Muffins saunters out from beneath the coffee table and rubs against her legs again, leaving a mess of orange hairs behind on her black pants.

“Cinnamon, Streaky, and Pickles,” Kara says, grinning, and Lucy glances around, trying to guess which ridiculous name belongs to which cat. Except…

“Kara, where is the fifth one?”

“Huh?”

“I count four. Where did-”

The sound of a glass shattering in the kitchen makes Kara wince, and she rushes out of the room. “Streaky! Not again!”

“What do you mean ‘again?’” Lucy hurries after her, nearly tripping over Muffins on the way. “Kara!”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU glimpse at Myriad and the aftermath from Lucy’s perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn’t actually on my list of prompts to fill but it’s what my brain decided to write for some reason. I have a bit of time off so I hope to get a few more of these up, including some of the prompts people have given me in the comments. The response to this collection has been awesome, so thank you all so much!

The urge to fight Non’s control is little more than a flutter in the recesses of Lucy’s consciousness, but it is there, and that’s what makes it all so much worse. It’s like she’s trapped inside her own mind, pushed into the darkest corner where she can do nothing but watch every action her body takes in helpless, silent horror.

Freeing Maxima is difficult, goes against every bit of training, every instinct she has honed as a soldier, as a lawyer, as director of the DEO. Some part of her that’s still aware of herself knows this isn’t her fault, not really, but as the countdown for prisoner release sounds throughout the facility, it feels as though she has failed in some way. Non’s influence is too strong, and it overpowers any part of her that screams for control.

But the fear and frustration at allowing a prison full of hostile aliens to escape is somehow nothing compared to the terror when Kara arrives and Lucy and Vasquez pull kryptonite guns.

Lucy despises feeling helpless, and under Myriad the part of her that is still  _her_  feels more helpless than she ever has before. She can’t stop herself from firing poisonous bullets at Kara, can’t apologize when one of them hits its mark and Kara cries out.

She barely registers Kara telling her to fight it. Her finger continues to pull the trigger, glowing green bullets ricocheting off the walls and storage cases.

Lucy watches it all through eyes that don’t feel like her own, that she wishes weren’t her own because that would mean she isn’t trying to hurt her… to hurt Kara.

A split second of faint relief filters through the overwhelming drive to kill just before the blast from Kara’s spaceship sends her into darkness.

* * *

When she comes to sometime later, she still sees everything through the haze of Myriad. Vasquez shuffles around to her left and both rise to their feet, their reflexive grunts of pain the only sounds in the vacant command center.

There is no longer the compulsion to release prisoners from containment, no command she and the other agents must follow, and so they stand at attention like toy soldiers scattered about the DEO, awaiting Non’s orders.

Something about brainwashing skews any sense of time, so it could be minutes or hours later that she finally registers the famous ‘S’ displayed on every screen in sight. Kara’s words of hope echo in her ears, beating back the fog enshrouding her mind as neurons spark to life once more with certain memories.

Supergirl –  _Kara_  – swooping down in front of the Red Tornado.

An offering of coffee on the CatCo balcony.

Blonde hair spilling free from a motorcycle helmet.

Bright smiles and kind words and quiet support.

Lucy blinks back into awareness, the haze dissipating.

She meets Vasquez’s eyes, sees the recognition there, feels her control returning, and rides the overwhelming wave of relief.

She reaches for her phone.

* * *

Hours later, after Kara has saved the planet and Alex has saved Kara, after she has hugged Kara tightly and for nowhere near long enough, Lucy finds a quiet moment to herself in a side hallway of the DEO.

She sits against a wall, cradling her gun in her palms, the kryptonite bullets long since removed. It’s the first chance she’s had to really reflect on how it felt to be under Myriad’s control.

She remembers it with more clarity than expected. If Lucy possessed less self-control, she might shudder at the memories. As it is, she only clenches her jaw and grips her gun a little tighter.

She’s glad to know that Fort Rozz is currently floating off into space somewhere, and Myriad with it. And that a lobotomized Non now rots away in a cell in the bowels of the DEO.

The shuffling of feet in the hallway draws Lucy back to the present. She looks up to see Kara approaching, eyes downcast, nervous fingers tangled at her waist.

“Hey,” Kara murmurs. She slides down the wall to sit beside Lucy, legs tucked up against her chest, cape bunching at the small of her back. Her hands come around to clasp at her ankles as she tilts her head to look at Lucy, gaze soft. “You okay?”

Lucy smiles, a small quirk of her lips. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Supergirl?”

“Well…” Kara shrugs, hesitates, her eyes flitting over Lucy’s form as though searching for injuries. “Did I hurt you?” she blurts after a moment, and Lucy frowns.

“What?”

“When I blasted you with my ship,” Kara clarifies, gaze finding Lucy’s again. “Did I injure you?”

Memories of that fight flash in Lucy’s mind, and the gun seems to burn a little in her hands. She sets it aside.

Kara rushes on before she can answer. “I’m really sorry, Lucy,” she says.

Lucy gapes. “Kara, you have nothing to be sorry for. I was trying to _kill_ you.”

“You weren’t in control of yourself,” Kara counters, shaking her head.

“And you didn’t have a choice. You know that, and so do I.” Lucy exhales, slow and heavy. “We’re okay, Kara.” Lucy’s eyes drift down to the tear in Kara’s sleeve, the edges stained with blood but the skin underneath smooth and pristine. “Right?”

Kara smiles, nods. “Right.” She stretches out her legs, red boots squeaking against the concrete floor. Her hands fall to either side of her, the one nearest Lucy landing palm-up between them, a silent invitation.

Lucy takes it, lacing their fingers together. She wonders absently how much of the sensation Kara can feel as she clutches her hand tight. “You saved the entire planet, Kara,” she says after a moment. Lucy can’t imagine how much worse things might have been if not for this woman beside her. “Thank you.”

Kara blushes, tilting her chin down to her chest so that her hair falls to shield her face. “I just did what I had to.”

With her free hand, Kara runs a finger over the hole in her sleeve. “And I hope you don’t feel guilty about this, either,” she says eventually.

Lucy opens her mouth to deny it, but Kara’s eyes, bright and knowing, catch hers and she sighs. “Maybe a little,” she concedes. “There was a part of me, under Myriad’s control, that was aware of what I was doing. I tried, but I couldn’t stop it.”

“I understand.” Kara’s hand tightens around hers, not enough to hurt, but the sense of security it provides is a nice feeling. “And thank you, Lucy, for everything. Kryptonite bullets aside, I don’t know what I would have done without your help through all of this, especially while Alex and J’onn were on the run.”

“Of course, Kara.” Lucy smiles, giving a gentle stroke of her thumb against Kara’s skin. “You’ve helped me, too. More than you know.”

Kara hums, quiet and pleased. “I’m really glad you get to stay, Lucy.” She pauses. Then, “You… You are staying, right?”

“Absolutely.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: None.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Apologies for how long it has been. This is the first time I’ve had enough free time to write in a long while. This one shot is on the longer end of things I’ve posted here, which can hopefully somewhat make up for my absence and the fact that I haven’t yet fulfilled any of the prompts I’ve received in the comments, which I will absolutely get to once this quarter from hell is over. Anyway, this isn’t based on any kind of prompt but I guess it is vaguely Daredevil-esque (I haven’t actually seen all of that show, but that is not important). Thanks again for the kudos and the lovely comments!

Lucy is awoken from her light slumber atop a pile of legal documents by a rattling thump on her apartment balcony.

She’s too disoriented at first to consider the implications of this, but when the fog clears after a few seconds, Lucy frowns.

She lives on the top floor of her twelve-story building, and there is no fire escape attached to her living room balcony. Logically, the only thing that should be able to reach said balcony is a bird. But logic also tells her that whatever had landed on her balcony just now cannot possibly be a bird, unless National City’s birds had grown frighteningly larger in the time she was asleep.

Lucy reaches for the nearest weapon, a fork sitting in her empty takeout container, and then promptly discards it, because she’s Lucy fucking Lane and she’s Army-trained and what hell good is a fork going to do against a giant mutant bird or... whatever.

Slowly, she rises to her feet, her back and neck protesting the movement and reminding her why she really needs to stop falling asleep at her coffee table.

She makes her way over to the balcony door with light steps, then tugs back the curtain and peers through the glass.

It’s too dark to make out the figure clearly, the backlighting from the lamp in her living room obscuring the view even more, but what Lucy can discern without pressing her face to the glass – she has seen enough horror movies to know that’s never a good idea – is almost certainly a human figure sprawled out facedown on the balcony.

Better than a mutant bird, she supposes.

Against her better judgment, Lucy slides the door open and squints down at the figure, who she can see now is dressed in dark clothing and has a hood pulled over their head. They’re dressed the part of a burglar, but if that’s the case, this one is doing a pretty lousy job.

“Who the hell are you and why are you on my balcony?” Lucy asks, then adds, “ _How_  are you on my balcony?”

The figure only groans in response, then attempts to roll over, seeming to peer up at Lucy from beneath the brim of the hood. Long blonde hair spills out with the movement. “Sorry, I was aiming for the roof.”

“You- What?” Lucy isn’t sure what she had expected, but that wasn’t it. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Sky.” The word is barely discernible, and followed by another pained groan.

“The sky. Right.” Lucy sighs.

She contemplates the wisdom of helping a strange, probable burglar who fell onto her balcony in the middle of the night. What she should do is call the police, maybe an ambulance. But something, perhaps the general oddity of the situation, perhaps the fact that she hasn’t been surprise-stabbed in the gut and robbed yet, convinces her to do the stupid thing and kneel down beside her groaning visitor.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. I just need a minute.” It’s about as unconvincing a lie as Lucy’s ever heard. The woman doesn’t move. 

“Here, let me help you,” Lucy insists, and somehow, amidst pained mumblings that might be protestations, she manages to get them both standing, one arm wrapped around the woman’s waist as they take a couple of clumsy steps back over the threshold into her apartment.

They take another step and then pause, and Lucy realizes that the black material of the woman’s shirt feels damp under her hand. She pulls back her arm, tipping her hand towards the light to examine the blood staining her fingertips.

“You’re bleeding,” Lucy exclaims, just as the woman begins to sway without the support.

“Oh, yeah,” she murmurs, tilting dangerously forward.

Lucy hurries her over to the sofa and forces her to sit. For a second, it feels like she's trying to bend steel, but then the woman collapses backward into the cushions.

“I’m going to grab a first aid kit,” Lucy says. “Don’t move.”

When she returns from her bathroom thirty seconds later, the woman is exactly as she’d left her, head tilted forward, chin pressed to chest, hood still obscuring her face from view. Her fingers merely twitch when Lucy takes a seat next to her.

“I’m going to have to lift up your shirt,” Lucy tells her. Briefly, it occurs to her that this injury may be a result of trying to break into someone else’s apartment, that it would make a lot more sense to call the police, but she’s gotten this far, and Lucy is confident she can take a half-conscious cat burglar if it comes to that.

The woman hums and lolls her head back, which Lucy interprets as permission to lift her shirt up and examine the wound.

She has to bite back a gasp at the two-inch gash just beneath her rib cage. It looks deep, like – “Were you  _stabbed_?”

“Hmm.”

Lucy huffs, grabbing a cloth from the first aid kit to mop ineffectually at the blood. “You’d better not bleed out on my couch.”

The woman groans when Lucy presses harder on the wound. “The knife,” she slurs. When she lifts her head from the back of the sofa, the hood falls away, giving Lucy a clear view of glassy blue eyes and blonde hair plastered to a pale, pretty face.

Lucy stares for a moment, then blinks and returns to her efforts at stemming the flow of blood. “What about the knife?”

“Broke. Didn’t realize.”

“The knife broke?”

Curiously, Lucy lifts the rag and peers into the open wound, a task made difficult by the blood still seeping out. But sure enough, she spots the glint of something foreign deep inside, partially wedged into the lowest rib, though Lucy decides not to dwell on that detail for the moment. Of more concern is the fact that the supposed piece of broken knife is green and glowing and decidedly unlike any knife material Lucy has ever seen.

She wonders briefly whether it’s radioactive and if she has somehow gotten herself involved in something way more dangerous than just a daredevil cat burglar who enjoys leaping onto twelfth-story balconies. Either way, it’s probably too late to drag the woman back out onto the balcony and make her someone else’s problem.

She grabs a clean cloth to replace the one soaked through with blood and presses it back over the wound.

“Are you sure it was a knife?” she asks.

“Mhmm.”

“Well, it’s stuck in there,” Lucy tells her. “You need a hospital.”

“No!” If the woman had more energy, it might have been a vehement shout. As it is, she merely groans the word loudly as she shrinks deeper into the cushions.

Lucy frowns. “What do mean ‘no’? I’m not going to let you die on my couch.”

“Have to take it out,” the woman insists.

“That is a terrible idea.”

She shakes her head. “S’okay.”

Lucy huffs and rises from the couch, leaving the second rag, already soaked, in place on the wound. “ _No_ , it’s not okay. Are you insane? I’m not a doctor. If I remove it you’ll probably bleed out even faster.”

“Okay,” she murmurs, and Lucy thinks that’s the end of it. Except then the woman lifts her trembling hand to nudge the rag aside and plunges her own fingers into the wound before Lucy can even let out a yelp of shock.

“Hey! Oh my god!” Lucy’s hands hover uselessly between the woman’s body and her own, and she watches in confusion and horror as the woman digs around for a second and then extracts a sizable chunk of glowing green...something...with a pained grunt.

Finished and apparently drained, she lets her hand drop weakly back to her side, the green thing rolling free of her grasp and onto the floor at Lucy’s feet. Fresh streams of sweat drip from her forehead at the effort, her labored breaths filling the quiet left in the apartment by Lucy’s stunned silence.

It takes another minute for Lucy to recover her wits enough to speak. When she does, she manages to exclaim, “What the hell did you do that for?!”

The woman ignores her question. “Can you get rid of it?” she asks instead, sounding somehow more coherent than she had just a moment ago. “At least out of the room,” she adds when Lucy doesn’t move.

Lucy hesitates, but then bends over and scoops up the glowing blade fragment and the bloody rags and hurries to deposit them in the kitchen sink before returning to the living room. Her late night visitor hasn’t moved, but she already looks noticeably less pale and feeble than she had when Lucy had first dragged her over to the sofa.

A glance at the wound reveals that it’s no longer bleeding, beyond any reason that Lucy can fathom. Instead, it almost looks better than it had before.

When she sits down again on the sofa to take a closer look, Lucy nearly falls right back off. She watches, wide-eyed and breathless, as the wound very slowly stitches itself back together.

“You- How?”

Lucy sits there looking like the lead contender in a gaping fish contest for a whole minute before the woman finally sits up and tugs her shirt down over the wound. Clear blue eyes lock onto Lucy’s disbelieving gaze and Lucy’s jaw snaps shut with an audible click of teeth when the woman smiles at her sheepishly.

“Um. Thank you,” the maybe-burglar says, after a sufficiently awkward amount of time spent gazing into each other’s eyes has passed.

Lucy blinks, once again caught off guard. “For what? You’re the one who tore into yourself like this was a game of Operation.”

The woman’s brow furrows, and Lucy wonders if she’s just offended a potentially dangerous criminal, but then she asks, with sincere confusion, “Operation?” and Lucy doesn’t know whether to laugh or sigh because this is honestly so far from any scenario she might have imagined for how her night would turn out.

She goes with the sigh. “So are you going to tell me how you ended up on my balcony dying of a stab wound in the middle of the night?”

“Um.” The woman pulls nervously at the collar of her black sweater, looking anywhere but at Lucy, and Lucy is suddenly reminded of scattered news reports, just blurbs below the fold, of a figure dressed in black taking on crime across the city. Witnesses report feats of incredible speed and strength, one particular woman even claiming to have seen the figure fly away after saving her from a mugging late one night.

Lucy is almost certain now this woman is the vigilante she’s read about.

As a lawyer, she wants to be wary about someone who finds it acceptable to take the law into their own hands. But as a soldier, and maybe just as a person in general, Lucy wants to thank any person who has the strength and the will to finally stand up for the downtrodden of this city.

She sees the moment the woman understands that Lucy’s silence marks a revelation, watches her open her mouth – to defend herself? Warn Lucy not to tell? – before closing it abruptly as her head swings in the direction of the still-open balcony.

“I have to go,” she says, rising from the sofa faster than Lucy can blink. Only the flash of a wince at the movement indicates that her wound is not yet fully healed.

Lucy listens for the wail of sirens, something to explain the sudden determination to flee, but the night is as silent as can be expected in the middle of a major city, and before she can even muster a response, the woman is diving out of the balcony and back into the darkness.

* * *

She shows up again three nights later, this time uninjured and knocking at the balcony door.

When Lucy tugs the curtains back and sees her, dressed again in black, hood down this time, and lifting a bag stuffed with Chinese takeout like a peace offering, she almost laughs at the sight, but the humor of the moment is offset by the uncertainty about the vigilante herself and the reason for her return.

Against all reason, Lucy flips the lock and slides the door open to let her in, shaking her head in mild amusement as the vigilante woman grins and bounds inside as if she hadn’t just been mortally wounded and bleeding out in this very room only a few days ago.

“I’m sorry I had to leave so quickly the other night,” her visitor says before Lucy can ask what she’s doing here. “I heard a car about to drive off a bridge. Driver fell asleep at the wheel,” she explains, twisting the handles of the bag in her hands. “By the time I was finished there, I figured it was too late to come back. And then I had some... other things to deal with. But I wanted to come see you again tonight, to thank you for your help.”

Lucy shrugs. “It didn’t really seem like you needed my help in the end.”

“I did. And I appreciate it. I appreciate everything.” They both know she’s referring to the fact that Lucy had kept quiet about the whole ordeal. The lack of police sketches on the news or wanted posters on the streets would be enough to tell her that her secret still remains just that.

“Anyway,” the woman continues, brushing blonde hair back from her face and grinning almost triumphantly as she raises the bag of takeout and gives it a shake, “I brought you some food as thanks. I hope you like potstickers.”

Lucy arches an eyebrow, reaching back blindly to slide the balcony door shut. “That whole bag is potstickers?”

“Not the  _whole_  bag. There’s some rice in here, too. And maybe some noodles. I can’t remember.”

Lucy snorts a laugh and gestures for her to take a seat on the sofa. The bloodstains are gone, luckily easy to clean off the leather upholstery, but they both still hesitate a moment before sitting down.

“Are there chopsticks in there?” Lucy asks, ready to grab some from the kitchen if needed, and then she remembers something else that’s in her kitchen – a fragment of a glowing green knife blade that had prevented a wound from healing itself. She hadn’t been sure what to do with it, so she’d rinsed it clean of blood and tucked it into the back of a drawer, far out of sight. But now, with its victim returned, Lucy wonders whether it would have been safer to dispose of it, somewhere it could no longer hurt the woman sitting beside her.

The woman’s voice and the rustling of a paper bag draw her out of her head. “Yeah, I’ve got some in here somewhere.”

“Okay.”

There’s a quiet moment after that, occupied with shuffling takeout boxes around and tearing cheap chopsticks free of their paper wrapping. But the longer the quiet goes on, the more Lucy itches to ask the questions that have been swirling inside her mind since the moment the vigilante crash landed on her balcony.

Finally, curiosity gets the best of her, and Lucy adjusts so that she’s staring right at the woman, catching her mid-bite on what must have already been her fifth potsticker in two minutes. She asks, “So do you have a name or should I just keep calling you ‘vigilante woman’ in my head?”

“Oh, um.” She hesitates, understandably, and Lucy is about to retract the question, unsure why she’d even asked it, when the reply comes, soft and hesitant. “Kara.”

Twirling a chopstick in her left hand, Lucy gives Kara a reassuring half-smile and holds out her right for Kara to shake. “Lucy,” she offers, wondering idly at the bizarre series of events leading up to this moment. What kind of person makes friends with a superpowered vigilante they met through a combination of near-lethal stab wounds and accidental trespassing? Lucy Lane, apparently.

Kara beams, squeezing Lucy’s hand a little too tightly in her enthusiasm and then drawing back sharply when Lucy can’t conceal a wince. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Lucy chuckles. She watches Kara finish off a container of potstickers and reach for the next, and moves her own container subtly closer to her chest. “So how did you get stabbed?” she asks when at last Kara seems to take a breath. “And what was that knife made of?”

Kara grimaces, tapping her takeout container against her knee in contemplation for a second before she answers, apparently deciding just how far she can trust Lucy. “The knife was made of something called kryptonite,” she says eventually. “And I was stabbed by an alien who knew what it would do to me.”

Lucy doesn’t know whether to ask about the kryptonite or the alien thing first. Kara saves her the trouble.

“Kryptonite is poisonous to me. One of the last physical remnants of my planet and I can’t even go near it.”

It’s said so quietly Lucy almost doesn’t hear the words. But she does, and Kara knows she does, judging by the cautious look in her eyes as she gazes at Lucy from beneath long lashes, like she’s afraid of how Lucy might react.

Lucy gulps, mind spinning with the revelation that this is a superpowered  _alien_  vigilante sitting on her sofa and sharing Chinese takeout, that there are apparently  _other aliens_  running around with knives made of rock from another planet, and she's not really sure how to process all of this, so she does the only thing she can do at the moment and rests a reassuring hand over Kara’s tightly clenched fist.

Kara’s hand relaxes instantly at the touch, her worried frown softening to a tentative smile. “You’re not... scared?” she wonders quietly.

Lucy shrugs, returning the smile. “I might be freaking out a little,” she admits. “But I’ve read about the good you’re doing in this city- That is you, right?” At Kara’s nod, she continues, “And I know that anyone who spends their nights helping others can’t be all that dangerous.”

“I could be,” Kara murmurs, and Lucy knows it’s true. She has seen inklings of the power Kara wields, and despite her words, she’s not naive enough to believe that this woman, for all the brightness and dorkiness she’s exhibited around Lucy tonight, couldn’t be a real threat to humanity if she wanted to.

“And I’m not the only alien on this planet,” Kara adds. “A lot of them got here by accident, and they’re not always willing or able to blend in with humans. Some try to use their power to their advantage and they put innocent people in danger. I’m the only one who can stop them. And I do my best, but sometimes...” She glances pointedly at the spot where the knife wound had been three days ago.

Lucy imagines there isn’t so much as a scratch there now.

“What about you?” she asks. “I assume you’re not here by choice either.”

Kara nods. “My planet... it, um, it was destroyed, when I was a kid. My parents sent me to Earth to save me.”

“I’m sorry.” It seems so inadequate. But what do you say to someone who has lost literally their entire world?

Kara’s mouth twists into a sad smile. “It’s been a long time.”

Not that it makes much of a difference, they both know. The pain of loss may fade, but it never goes away.

“And everyone on your planet, they could do what you do?”

“No.” Kara shakes her head, setting aside another empty takeout container. “I didn’t get my powers until after I landed here.”

“I see.” Lucy nudges the last potsticker at the bottom of her container and then sets it aside. “Do you-”

Just as she had the night before, Kara stiffens, her focus drifting to something far beyond anything Lucy's senses can perceive.

“What is it?”

“Someone’s in trouble,” Kara explains, sweeping the empty takeout containers into the paper bag on the floor.

“Guess you’d better go, then, supergirl,” Lucy teases, and takes the bag from her.

Halfway out the balcony door, Kara pauses. She looks over her shoulder at Lucy, her fingers tap-tap-tapping nervously against the glass. “Can I come back?” she asks, and Lucy smiles.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy returns from the void of forgotten Season 1 characters and plot lines to spend time with Kara and crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have ‘forgotten’ to include Mon-El in this, so we’ll just pretend he doesn’t exist for the extent of this fic. Good? Good.
> 
> Sorry it’s been so long. Also, I didn’t edit this at all so here’s hoping it doesn’t suck. It’s a little silly and the ending is terrible because it's 3 am and I just want to sleep now, but hopefully you enjoy it anyway. Thanks!

She hears the murmurs of it as soon as she touches down on the balcony of the DEO.

In her time on Earth, Kara has learned to tune out the many voices around her. Even if she can always hear people speaking, she tries not to _hear_ them, out of whatever respect she can afford in spite of her alien ears.

Certain things, however, she always allows through her mental filter. Cries for help, and the like. The particular vocal tones of her family and close friends, the cadence of their footsteps. As Cat Grant’s assistant, Kara had once familiarized herself with each of her boss’s various idiosyncrasies, ready to attend to her every need or whim at a moment’s notice.

In general, though, the many conversations that drift around her on a daily basis hardly register on her radar. The only thing that makes today any different, three syllables that catch Kara’s attention as sharply as a scream even though they’re barely more than a whisper on the lips of the agent who speaks them, is a name she hasn’t heard in far too long.

Lucy Lane.

Excited at the mere mention of Lucy, Kara breezes down to the command center. She stops briefly to gather up the papers she’d blown out of an agent’s hands, apologizing profusely, and then hurries on at a slightly more sedate pace.

Kara’s eyes dart around as she slides to a stop at the base of the platform, searching. “Did someone say-” She catches sights of a small figure standing near Alex and Winn, their back to Kara’s approach. “Lucy!”

Lucy spins around with a wide grin at Kara’s exclamation. “Hey, Supergirl. Long time no see.”

Lucy’s arms come up to welcome her into a hug, and Kara rushes forward with perhaps a little too much force as she nearly barrels Lucy over and takes Alex and Winn down with them. They just manage to stay on their feet, Lucy laughing, Kara squealing and trying not to break her friend’s fragile human body.

“I can’t believe you’re really here!”

Subtly, Kara turns her face down, nose pressing against Lucy’s ear, and inhales deeply, trying to convince herself that she isn’t just imagining this. It’d been nearly a year since she’d last seen Lucy Lane, and Kara had begun to wonder whether she ever would again. She’s tired of losing the people she cares about, in any capacity, and Kara is glad this isn’t another of those times, squeezes a little tighter just to be doubly sure and breathes her in again.

“Kara, did you just smell me?” Lucy asks a second later, her tone amused, and okay, maybe Kara hadn’t been as subtle as she’d thought.

Kara finally pulls back, blushing down at her boots as her hands move around to clasp behind her back. “Sorry,” Kara says, a breathless laugh on her lips when she glances back up to see Lucy’s sparkling green eyes on her. “I was just… I missed you.”

“Yeah?” Lucy replies, smile widening. She looks as beautiful as Kara remembers, more so even. Perhaps her time working missions abroad had done her some good.

Kara almost forgets they have an audience in the form of Alex and Winn, still standing behind Lucy with twin smirks on their faces.

“You know, one of the first things Kara said to me about you was that you smelled nice,” Alex remarks, a teasing glint in her eyes.

Kara sputters. “What- I- Psh- _No_ , that’s- I didn’t…” She trails off, pouting at their utterly unconvinced grins, and exhales in defeat. “Well, you do,” she states defiantly, hands sliding around to rest on her hips. She figures owning it is her best option at this point.

Lucy chuckles quietly, the skin around her eyes crinkling with mirth. “I’m flattered, then.”

Kara puffs her chest up and barely resists the urge to poke her tongue out at her big sister for the attempt at embarrassing her. Lucy is _flattered_ by her. Take that, Alex.

She turns her focus back to Lucy. “So did you just get back?”

Lucy nods. “My flight came in a few hours ago. I was just telling Alex and Winn about the alien tech we picked up in Brazil.”

“It’s good you got to it before Cadmus did,” Alex says, moving to lean against Winn’s desk. “The last thing we need is them getting a hold of more dangerous weaponry to terrorize the city with.”

“Yeah, I heard about the attacks a few months back.” Lucy shifts, widening her stance and crossing her arms as she reverts back to DEO director mode. “We may have Lillian Luthor behind bars for the time being, but there is no way Cadmus is done. I had some run-ins with a few of their operatives in my time away. They’re gathering materials as well as intel, planning something big.”

“And we need to figure out what that is before more innocent people get hurt,” Kara adds.

The others give resolute nods. They relax a little when Lucy’s hands drop back to her sides.

“Well, I still have a few debriefing matters to wrap up, but I would love to catch up more with you guys later.” Kara isn’t sure if she’s imagining it, but Lucy’s eyes seem to linger a bit longer on hers when they meet. “We should do dinner when everyone’s free. Invite James and J’onn, too.”

“Ooh, we should do a game night,” Winn says. “It’s been a while since we had one of those.”

Kara tries to imagine J’onn playing charades, and then decides it’s a good thing he can’t read Kryptonian minds. She suppresses a giggle. “How about tonight?” she suggests. “We can meet at my place after work. I’ll order pizza. And potstickers. Ooh, and I’ll need to pick up ice cream…”

Lucy laughs. “Sounds great. I’ll bring wine?”

“Please do,” Alex replies, only half joking.

Kara rolls her eyes. When she glances back to Lucy, the woman is giving her another look Kara can’t decipher, but she pushes that matter aside for later and grins brightly. “Great! So I’ll see you all at… eight?”

“Eight it is,” Lucy says, and Kara _really_ can’t decipher the wink she receives after that, but the giddy feeling it gives her lingers for the rest of the day.

* * *

J’onn passes on the game night, insisting he needs to stay and monitor the DEO, but he does send M’gann in his place, which Kara presumes to be an attempt to help her make more friends. She ends up fitting in with their group remarkably well, and Kara knows that J’onn will be pleased to fit another adoptive daughter into their hodgepodge Earth family, even if he’ll never admit it aloud.

They’re four pizzas in, mostly thanks to Kara, and partway through a game of Clue that no one is paying attention to when conversation turns from introductions and pleasantries to everything Lucy had missed in her time away.

“Kara got drunk for the first time,” Alex offers cheekily.

“Seriously? I’m sorry I missed that.” Lucy smirks. “What did she drink?”

“Aldebaran rum,” M’gann answers, smiling a little at the memory.

“You’ll have to bring some along next time,” Lucy says, eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief as she glances at Kara sitting next to her.

“Oh, yeah,” Alex chuckles. “It’ll be hilarious.”

Kara blushes, lower lip jutting out in a pout, but perks up when she recalls some news that will surely one-up the tale of her brief escapade in drunkenness. “Yeah, well, Alex has a girlfriend!”

Lucy’s eyes widen and turn to Alex, who immediately turns bright red and ducks her head to hide the giddy smile that always pushes its way to the surface at the thought of her girlfriend. “Do tell.”

Alex sputters a little, much like Kara had earlier, but proceeds to fill Lucy in on her relationship with Maggie, who hadn’t been able to make it, stuck working a night shift.

Kara is too focused on smiling warmly at her sister’s happiness to notice when Lucy’s equally warm gaze drifts from Alex to her.

She doesn’t, however, miss Lucy’s knee shifting to press against her own when the topic moves on to Lena Luthor’s arrival in National City and Clark’s visit following the Venture incident. The giddy feeling from earlier returns, along with a tingling sensation where their legs make contact that Kara chooses not to examine too closely right now.

Lucy frowns disapprovingly at James and Winn when she finds out about Guardian, but wisely steers the conversation in another direction when she senses the building tension in the room. She’ll yell at them later, Kara knows.

When the last of the empty ice cream containers and pizza boxes have been deposited in Kara’s trash, everyone is getting up to head home for the night. Kara can tell that Alex is eager to spend some time with Maggie before it grows too late, and sends her off with a hug as soon her cab arrives. M’gann walks out with her, smiling, after Kara extends to her an invitation to any future gatherings.

When James and Winn leave next, the smiles and hugs they share are a little less strained than usual. Kara doesn’t know if it’s the loosening effects of the alcohol on their part, or just something to do with the happy atmosphere she has felt herself drifting through all day, but she hopes it might mark the first step towards their reconciliation, whatever form that may take.

The door shuts behind the boys, and then it’s just Kara and Lucy remaining in the apartment.

“This was fun.” Lucy sighs lightly. “I’ve missed spending time with you guys.”

Kara turns around with a bashful smile. “I- We missed you, too, Lucy. It’s good to have you back.”

“Hey, Kara?”

“Hmm?”

Lucy takes a step forward, hands clasped in front of her. “Can I ask you something?”

Kara shrugs and offers an encouraging smile. “Sure.”

“You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.” Lucy’s gaze shifts to the empty wine bottles sitting on the island, avoiding Kara’s own. “It’s just… I couldn’t help noticing that you and James didn’t seem to be…” She trails off, and Kara nods.

“No, we’re… Um, we’re not together anymore,” Kara tells her softly. “Never really were, actually.”

Lucy’s mouth twists in a frown, brows furrowing. She catches Kara’s eyes again. “Can I ask why?”

Kara shrugs again, shuffling away from the door to stand closer to the island, closer to Lucy. “I guess I just… I thought I wanted it, but when we were finally together it just… didn’t feel right?” Kara doesn’t know if she’s telling, or maybe she’s asking, looking for some sort of understanding even though she herself still isn’t sure what went wrong there.

She had been so sure that James was the one for her, but Kara can admit to herself now that perhaps things have simply changed too much since that first ‘wa-pow’ moment in James’s office. She had told Cat she doesn’t do well with change, and maybe that’s why she’d been clinging so tightly to those initial feelings, unwilling to accept the fact that she and James really are better off as friends. In this life, at least. Kara likes to imagine there is a universe out there in which things worked out well for the both of them, without any heartbreak.

“I don’t really know.” Kara sighs, bites her lip. “I don’t know if anyone will ever feel right for me. Maybe I’m not meant to-”

“Hey,” Lucy interrupts, and Kara isn’t sure when it happened, but they’re close enough now that Lucy can reach out and lay a hand over Kara’s where it rests on the island. “Of course you’ll find someone, Kara. When the time is right, you’ll figure it out,” she assures. “The universe owes you that much,” Lucy adds, tone lightening.

Kara huffs a laugh, nodding. “Thanks, Lucy.”

“Of course.”

They fall into a comfortable silence for a moment, and Kara becomes acutely aware of Lucy’s hand still resting over hers. Lucy’s skin is slightly cooler than her own, and Kara can feel her pulse in each of the fingertips pressed against the back of her hand.

When Kara looks from their hands to Lucy’s green eyes, dark in the dim lighting of her kitchen, she once again feels that warm, tingling sensation surge high in her chest. She’s been more or less ignoring it up to this point, but now, in the silence, Kara finds herself examining the feeling more closely, though still wary about acknowledging it.

It makes her feel… anxious, maybe? She shifts her feet a little, awkward, and feels compelled to lick her lips. It’s only because her eyes are still fixed on Lucy’s that she sees her pupils widen, spots the briefest downward flicker.

Lucy is the first to break the silence. “Can I ask you another question?”

“Okay,” Kara murmurs, feeling as though her gaze is physically locked onto Lucy’s now.

Lucy’s expression becomes a confusing mix of slight apprehension and amusement then, and she asks, eyebrow quirking upward, “Is Alex the only Danvers sister who had a gay awakening while I was away?”

Kara opens her mouth to respond, but all that comes out is some embarrassing squeaking sound before her jaw snaps shut again, eyes widening. Her automatic answer would have been ‘yes,’ but that _feeling_ is still knocking in her chest, rattling her ribcage, and she isn’t sure that would be the truth. Not now, anyway. Not with Lucy Lane back and _here_ , standing in front of her, with a hopeful glint almost buried beneath the teasing light in her eyes and a little half smile that makes Kara’s heart warm and fluttery in her chest – and boy is she glad that she’s the one with the super hearing.

Maybe ‘gay awakening’ isn’t the right term for it, but Kara definitely feels _something_ , standing here in her kitchen and staring at Lucy, who’s staring at her, presumably still awaiting an answer. Kara isn’t sure she can give one at the moment, not definitively, but she eventually manages a light shrug, timid smile creeping onto her face.

“That’s a good question.”


End file.
